Review: King of Thieves

A crime film where the characters actually ask - on more than one occasion - which one of their group is the "king of thieves" (or words to that effect) is a crime film with too much time on its hands. Maybe they should have pulled out a league table with everyone ranked according to crime skills; it arguably would have been more fun than this dour adventure.

But hey, look - it’s Michael Caine heading up a bunch of old school UK actors all playing criminals who pulled off a recent real-life big time diamond heist – this has got to be a must-see for fans of crime capers, right? Sadly, no; rather than being a thrilling romp – or even a tense tale of high-stakes criminality – this combines a remarkably un-thrilling heist with a collection of universally unlikable characters to create a film that takes an all-star cast (Jim Broadbent, Ray Winstone, Michael Gambon, and Charlie Cox, to name a few) and drains all the charm out of them. 

It's almost tempting to recommend this on that basis alone: making those guys seem dull and flat is an achievement in itself. But for reasons difficult to fathom -  perhaps due to sticking a little too close to the facts about the real Hatton Garden robbery - this constantly swerves between a mildly knockabout romp and a collection of unlikable fellows arguing with each other. Worse, the crime itself is one of the least thrilling sequences in cinematic crime history, involving as it does drilling a few holes and knocking a cabinet over, which possibly could have been fun to watch if it didn't take up most of the films middle section.

Crime films probably shouldn't glorify real-life criminals (though having the police claiming such a skilful robbery could only have been undertaken by a crack European crew does leave you scratching your head a little considering how straightforward this film makes the crime seem) but the final act goes out of its way to show pretty much everyone as either extremely petty, deluded, or a nasty thug. Which is only really a problem because earlier it seemed happy to shape up as the last hurrah of a bunch of decent guys who just wanted to show the world they still had it in them.

No-one comes out of this mess looking good, but there's enough raw charisma up on the screen to keep the events at least watchable (especially when the film cuts to old clips of the cast from previous, much better crime movies). If someone had figured out exactly what kind of film they were making, this probably would have worked out fine: everybody involved deserves better.

- Anthony Morris