It’s a huge bummer when a movie wastes incredible talent. Any film that boasts a cast like this, with Michael Caine at the top in a starring role, teaming up with Jim Broadbent, Tom Courtenay, Charlie Cox, Michael Gambon, and Ray Winstone, the final product should be way better. Throw in a quality director like James Marsh at the helm and this sounds like the talents behind an Oscar contender. Well, opening this week, King of Thieves is not that. This heist tale is slowly paced, dull, and a shall of what it could have been. Alas, this was a big time letdown. The film is a “based on a true story” crime drama. Centered on infamous true events in England, we follow a famous thief named Brian Reader (Caine) as he gets back in the game. Mourning the loss of his wife, he begins to pull together a...
- 1/24/2019
- by Joey Magidson
- Hollywoodnews.com
Nobody has as much energy as they used to in “King of Thieves,” which is partly the point. James Marsh’s true-crime heist movie is built around two remarkably high figures: first, the £14 million value of the loot, making the burglary in question the largest in British legal history, and more crucially, the average age of the culprits, almost all of whom were veteran criminals well into retirement.
The Hatton Garden jewelry heist made international headlines in 2015, but could have been a story dreamed up in Ealing Studios’ midcentury prime: A Vanity Fair article on which this film is based was even titled “The Over-the-Hill Mob.” Small wonder, then, that British film producers have been swift to jump on it. Yet this proficiently polished thriller (the second big-screen treatment of the story in two years) seems to feel a creak in its own joints: Torn between jaunty genre hijinks and a bleaker streak of realism,...
The Hatton Garden jewelry heist made international headlines in 2015, but could have been a story dreamed up in Ealing Studios’ midcentury prime: A Vanity Fair article on which this film is based was even titled “The Over-the-Hill Mob.” Small wonder, then, that British film producers have been swift to jump on it. Yet this proficiently polished thriller (the second big-screen treatment of the story in two years) seems to feel a creak in its own joints: Torn between jaunty genre hijinks and a bleaker streak of realism,...
- 9/19/2018
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Lovable British rogues have enthralled cinema goers for the better part of a century in classic London crime capers like Brighton Rock, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Italian Job and The Long Good Friday, through to McVicar, Lock Stock, Sexy Beast and Legend (2015). Even when brandishing knuckle dusters, plotting to off little old ladies, threatening to shit the Ira or taking their shirts off (cas they’re “sweating like a c*%t”), these antiheroes have made a massive mark in cinema over the decades. Despite being synonymous with heist movies they are arguably a genre unto themselves yet, but while the widespread affection remains, there hasn’t been a truly memorable cockney/ London crime film or character for quite some time.
In 2015, the infamous Hatton Garden robbery, in which £200 million’s worth of cash and jewels were stolen from safety deposit boxes, provided film producers with the basis for a fresh and relevant take.
In 2015, the infamous Hatton Garden robbery, in which £200 million’s worth of cash and jewels were stolen from safety deposit boxes, provided film producers with the basis for a fresh and relevant take.
- 9/3/2018
- by Daniel Goodwin
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Author: Stefan Pape
When watching the news back in April 2015, to watch on as the events surrounding the Hatton Garden heist unravelled – where four elderly men pulled off one of the most ambitious robberies of all time – it was impossible to not envisage a movie. Lo and behold, barely two years on, and the first cinematic endeavour depicting this astonishing tale is set to hit our screens – and HeyUGuys were fortunate enough to be invited on to the film’s London set.
The set was notable for its commitment to authenticity, with real life equipment – such as a monumental drill – being used to reenact the break-in sequences, to not only enrich the experience for the actors, but for the viewers too. However director Ronnie Thompson told us that he’s blending realism with a more overtly cinematic approach, vying to find the humour within this ordeal, and play up to it accordingly.
When watching the news back in April 2015, to watch on as the events surrounding the Hatton Garden heist unravelled – where four elderly men pulled off one of the most ambitious robberies of all time – it was impossible to not envisage a movie. Lo and behold, barely two years on, and the first cinematic endeavour depicting this astonishing tale is set to hit our screens – and HeyUGuys were fortunate enough to be invited on to the film’s London set.
The set was notable for its commitment to authenticity, with real life equipment – such as a monumental drill – being used to reenact the break-in sequences, to not only enrich the experience for the actors, but for the viewers too. However director Ronnie Thompson told us that he’s blending realism with a more overtly cinematic approach, vying to find the humour within this ordeal, and play up to it accordingly.
- 4/11/2017
- by Stefan Pape
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Seven members of a gang who pulled off a $20 million jewelry heist from a London vault have been found guilty in court. The gang pulled off the biggest burglary in British legal history in Easter 2015 when they raided 56 safe deposit boxes at the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Co. in the heart of London's historic jewelry quarter. Making the heist more notable was that six of the seven thieves were past the age of 55. "It was an audacious, brazen burglary that was some three years in the planning," Scotland Yard's Detective Superintendent Craig Turner says in a statement. "Hatton Garden jewelers...
- 1/14/2016
- by Philip Boucher, @philipboucher
- PEOPLE.com
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