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Michael Caine leads the Old Lags on one last hurrah in the misjudged King of Thieves |
Director: James Marsh
Cast: Michael Caine (Brian Reader), Jim Broadbent (Terry
Perkins), Tom Courtenay (John Kenny Collins), Charlie Cox (Basil/Michael Seed),
Paul Whitehouse (Carl Wood), Michael Gambon (Billy “The Fish” Lincoln), Ray
Winstone (Danny Jones), Francesca Annis (Lynne Reader)

James Marsh pulls together a great cast of actors for his
heist caper. Brian Reader, the brains behind the operation, is played with gravitas
by Michael Caine. Terry Perkins, the man who cuts Reader out of the profits, is
played by Jim Broadbent. Tom Courtenay, Ray Winstone, Paul Whitehouse and
Michael Gambon play the rest of the lags while Charlie Cox is the young tech
expert who brings the possibility of the heist to Reader’s attention. With a
cast like this, it’s a shame the overall film is a complete mess from start to
finish.
I watched this film after first watching ITV’s forensically
detailed four-part series, Hatton Garden,
covering the heist in full detail. That drama was far from perfect, but it was
vastly superior to this. The main strength of Hatton Garden was that it never, ever lost sight of the fact that
this was not a victimless crime. Real-life small businesses went bust due to
property lost in the heist. Families lost priceless, irreplaceable heirlooms.
Items of hugely sentimental value have never been recovered. Lives were
damaged. On top of that, Hatton Garden
stresses the grimy lack of glamour to these thieves, their greed, their
paranoia, their aggression and their capacity for violence. Far from charming
rogues, they are selfish, greedy old men who fall over themselves to betray
each other and are clueless about the powers and abilities of the modern police
force.
King of Thieves
occasionally tries to remind people that these were hardened career criminals.
But it also wants us to have a great time watching actors we love carry out a
heist against the odds, like some sort of Ocean’s
OAPs. James Marsh never manages to make a consistent decision on the angle
he is taking on these men or the crime they carried out. It’s half a comedy,
half a drama and the tone and attitude towards the burglars yo-yos violently
from scene to scene. The end result, basically, is to let them off with a slap
on the wrist.
“It’s patronising” rages Reader at one point at the media
coverage of the crime, annoyed at how it stresses their age as if that somehow
makes it a jolly jaunt. Never mind that the film does the same. The score
contributes atrociously to this, a series of jazzy, caperish tunes that echo
the 60s heydays of these violent men (Reader and Perkins had both stood trial
for murders, and were lucky to get off) punctured with some cheesily
predictable songs. Tom Jones plays as our heroes comes together, and Shirley
Bassey warbles The Party’s Over as
things fall apart. The old men banter and bicker about the confusions of the
modern world like a series of talking heads from Grumpy Old Men and the general mood is one of light comedy.
The film does try and darken the tone in the second half,
post-robbery, as things start to fall apart and tensions erupt in the gang.
Here we get a little bit of the mettle of the actors involved in this. Jim
Broadbent, in particular, goes way against type as Perkins’ capacity of
violence (even at a diabetes-wracked 67) starts to emerge. Tom Courtenay’s
Kenny Collins emerges as manipulative liar, playing off the robbers against
each other. Ray Winstone sprays foul language around with a pitbull aggression.
Even Michael Caine roars a few death threats, furious at being betrayed by the gang.
But it never really takes, because the film never throws in
any sense of the victims of this crime. Blood is never drawn in this slightly
darker sequence of the film. Even the clashes between the gang are played at
times for light relief. Anything outside the gang is ignored. The victims? Who
cares. The cops? There is barely a policeman in this film who has a line.
The film undermines the whole point it might be trying to
make – that these were dangerous men – by succumbing to romanticism at its very
end. As the captured old lags await trial, we first see them laughing and
joking with each other as they prep for court and then, as they walk towards
the dock, the film throws up old footage of the actors from the 60s, 70s and
80s, stressing their romanticism. Look, the film seems to be saying: these were
criminals, but they were old fashioned criminals, remember when Britain used to
make its own underdog crims instead of being awash with hardened, violent
gangs? It’s hard to take. And it’s like the whole film. A tonal mess that
finally absolves the robbers who ruined lives and who still haven’t returned
almost £10 million of ordinary people’s goods. King of Thieves isn’t charming. It’s alarming.
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