King of Thieves *** (2018, Michael Caine, Tom Courtenay, Jim Broadbent, Ray Winstone, Paul Whitehouse, Michael Gambon, Charlie Cox) – Movie Review

Director James Marsh’s real-life crime thriller King of Thieves (2018) stars national treasure Michael Caine, who plays Brian Reader, the titular King of Thieves, who masterminds the infamous Hatton Garden Robbery, assembling a crew of ancient British crooks to try to pull off a major heist in London’s jewellery district.

James Marsh made The King (2005), Shadow Dancer (2012), The Theory of Everything (2014), and The Mercy (2018) so maybe much could be expected of him. He is a serious film-maker with a fair track record. He also won a 2009 Oscar for Best Documentary for Man on Wire (2008)

Equity must have been alerted. Some of its finest are assembled. Tom Courtenay, Jim Broadbent, Ray Winstone, and Paul Whitehouse play the crooks, Charlie Cox plays the young techie brought in to get them in and the alarms off, and Michael Gambon plays a Billy the Fish Lincoln, a fishmonger/ fence. The underused Gambon apart, they all have satisfying roles to play, and play them well, as you would expect. But Francesca Annis has absolutely nothing to do as Caine’s wife.

It is a blokes’ movie, an old blokes’ movie. There are lots of remarks about old age, infirmity and impending death that seem part of the script’s theme, but they get absolutely nowhere. Courtenay’s character’s deafness and need to fall asleep on the job is treated like a joke (that isn’t funny) and is at odds with his unpleasant character. Indeed the film has a tone problem. Juggling the jokey dialogue with the nasty personnel is not a trick it can pull off for very long.

It comes with a screenplay by Joe Penhall, based on a couple of magazine articles, one of them by Mark Seal. Penhall wrote the screenplay of The Road a while back, so maybe much could be expected of him, more than he can deliver. It wants to be smart and thoughtful, at the same time as exciting, but that ambition stays largely outside its grasp.

Being the main star in true crime film is good work for the 85-year-old Caine, and he is good too of course as the 76-year-old Brian Reader, at least as good as the script will let him be. Alas, there are no cracking one-liners in a script that is meant to zing. That gives Caine and his fellow thesps some trouble. Winstone goes through his Ray Winstone act profitably one more time, while Broadbent brings edge playing a nasty piece of work, and Courtenay enjoys himself too, playing a snivelling, duplicitous character.

The heist is the best part of the movie, it is quite tense and involving though it feels rushed, and the writer wants to get swiftly on to what the movie feels it is really about – the backstabbing of dishonour among thieves that proves their undoing.

The problem is, that these characters as presented here, are deeply unappealing, even Caine’s character, which is in some way presented as heroic and admirable. Charlie Cox comes off best in this, because his character is presented as essentially honourable and decent, even if he is a thief.

It is interesting the way the police are portrayed as voiceless characters relentlessly bearing down on the exceptionally careless seeming ‘heroes’ and interesting too the way the final scenes use archive footage of the actors’ past roles. It adds style and flourish somewhat missing elsewhere in a rather plain-looking movie, with little flavour of ‘real’ London. Caine walks along the Thames a couple of times, and is seen in faceless alleyways, waiting at bus stops, getting on buses and trains, and there a few stock shot aerial views of the capital, but most of the flavour is that of Ealing Studios, London, where it was shot.

Winstone went to school with the character he is playing.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

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