King of Thieves Review

In 2015 the world was shocked when a group of elderly criminals committed the largest burglary in English legal history. This remarkable story has been given the cinematic treatment thanks to Working Title Films and Studiocanal.

Brian Reader (Michael Caine) is a retired criminal whose wife passes away. Despite his promise he re-enters the criminal world – Brian is convinced to do one last job by a young telecoms worker Basil (Charlie Cox) and together bring together a team of old crooks to rob the Hatton Garden vault over the Easter holiday.

King of Thieves is accurately the third film about the Hatton Garden Heist – the others being a straight-to-DVD releases led by Sidney Livingstone and Larry Lamb. King of Thieves is obviously the more prestigious film due to the talent involved in front of and behind the camera. James Marsh (The Theory of Everything) directed and Joe Penhall (The Road) wrote the screenplay and there a group of elderly acting greats leading the film.

Marsh and his team wanted to make King of Thieves a homage to crime and caper films of the ’60s and ’70s and this is reflected in the styling and casting. Michael Caine and Ray Winstone are known for gangster and geezer roles and they play to type; Caine being the charismatic leader and Winstone continuing to be the hard man even at 60-years of age. Their dialogue could have fitted in their famous roles like Charlie Croker in the Italian Job and Gal Dove in Sexy Beast.

Marsh made efforts to capture the feeling of the ’60s. There was the use of archive footage from real crimes like The Great Train Robbery and gangster films and Benjamin Wallfisch gave the film an upbeat, jazz style score. The first half of film had a light tone, the characters were joking amongst themselves, having some witty banter and plotting a variety of robberies before settling for the Hatton Garden heist. The film plays on the fact that these characters were old and that they have health issues, being overweight and get tired easily.

The second half of the film focuses on the aftermath of the heist and this was when it took a serious turn due to the characters turning on each other. Their friendship fractious and the old adage ‘there is no honour amongst thieves.’ It also takes a dark turn as two of the gang turn to violence and intimidation.

One of the big themes of the film is the heist is an old-fashioned crime, that the world of crime has changed a lot since they were active. Organised crime has moved to the internet and the gang members like Tom Courtenay’s Kenny who is unwilling to use the internet to sell stolen goods and Terry (Jim Broadbent) and Danny (Ray Winstone) are willing to use a bit of violence to get their way.  And it’s their old-fashioned ways that lead to their downfall

Another theme is some of the characters are sticking it to The Man. Danny is in debt and calls banks the real criminals and Brian states that dodgy people who work in and use Hatton Garden. The gang target the safety deposit boxes of known criminals. This aims to make Brian a loveable rogue – but one important bit of information was mitigation until the film’s climax because it would have prevented audiences from having any sympathy for him.

On a side note the film does an excellent job portraying the police investigation. The police had to figure out who committed the crime via CCTV footage and looking at computer records. This could have been incredibly tedious but Marsh and his editors got round this by quick cutting, speeding up the pace and actually making investigation somewhat interesting.

King of Thieves had a great cast and fans of these actors would be satisfied with their performances. Jim Broadbent was the most surprising as he plays against type, being the most violent and volatile member of the crew – despite his old age he was still intimidating.

King of Thieves is a fun film about a true crime thanks to its humour, cast and willingness to embrace its ’60s vibe. Fans of classic gangster and heist films ranging from The Italian Job to Sexy Beast will get a blast from the past.