A slow-burning story of robbery and betrayal
Dir James Marsh Starring Michael Caine, Jim Broadbent, Tom Courtenay, Ray Winstone, Charlie Cox, Michael Gambon, Paul Whitehouse, Francesca Annis
King of Thieves is about a salty bunch of old reprobates who’ve been pulling fast ones their whole lives. The Hatton Garden diamond robbers, you say? No – I’m talking about Sir Michael Caine, Sir Tom Courtenay, Sir Michael Gambon, Jim Broadbent, Paul Whitehouse, and Ray Winstone. Though it purports to tell the story of the 2015 jewellery heist, James Marsh’s wily biopic is just as much an essay on the screen careers of these men.
Towards the end, he gives them a lap of honour, inserting a short moment from an early performance each gave – there’s Courtenay in Billy Liar, Winstone in Scum, and so on. Not that this fond homage means he is forgiving of the gang they play – there’s less honour between this lot than a pack of rats at an abattoir.
The plan they hatch is not an especially elaborate one: over an Easter weekend, with the help of a timid alarm specialist Basil (Charlie Cox), they punch through into the safe deposit vault with a pneumatic coring drill. The drill malfunctions and, come their return the next day with a new drill, faith in the whole thing is fraying. Two of them – original mastermind Brian (Caine) and skittish hanger-on Carl (Whitehouse) – decide to sit it out. It’s a nonchalant start. Up against big-screen heists from Rififi to the Ocean’s franchise, this has no real hold-your-breath moments, and needs a lot of help from Benjamin Wallfisch’s jazzy score to stay on its feet at all.
Still, there’s one fabulous shot to look forward to: it’s of Winstone’s Danny squeezing his frame through the hole and cackling with triumph.
The real meat is in the messy aftermath. From the moment the gang pile up their ill-gotten gains on a kitchen table, the law of the jungle asserts itself. And it first claws up Basil, who is sent packing with a cashonly haul in his arms, a tiny fraction of his fair share. He and the rapacious Terry (a deadly, controlling Broadbent) have both pocketed secret, potentially high-value diamonds that no one else knows about, but finding a way to fence these is far from easy.
Meanwhile, Brian – shut out of all the divvying but promised his end by Basil – becomes one of Caine’s most blistering recent creations. Set at a low simmer at first, that spittle-flecked Cainian rage bursts out when he grasps the extent to which he is being double-crossed. Terry and Danny bully their way into the thick of things; and Courtenay’s Kenny tells everyone he’s their ally, then sabotages them behind their backs.
All the while, the long arm of the law encroaches: one of the neatest decisions of Joe Penhall’s script, which shows how the authorities used surveillance to close a net around them, is to illustrate this sans dialogue. There’s more than enough acrid chatter among the thieves to keep us entertained. In its best moments, the film’s writing and acting have the grubby energy of good Pinter. In its worst, it’s businesslike and, for all the vivid performances, oddly bland.