This was a decent episode of Softly Softly. Watt gets a tip off that a big time villain (played by Morris Perry) is planning a theft and the guy has a reputation for only being interested in a large take. Watt has a rough map, the time of the robbery but neither the location or what's to be taken. He pulls in a small fry known associate who gets the gentle touch from Watt and the tough guy from Harry Hawkins.
Showing that initiative in the Task Force goes right down to the bobby on the beat, it's PC Snow who happens onto the fact that the security at the town art gallery has been neutralised, and finally they know where and what the target was, a million quid's worth of paintings and a hundred grand in jade, all stolen to order for a crooked collector in Amsterdam.
Guest Star Eric Mason has the face of a villain (he played a crook who kidnapped Jack Regan's daughter in an episode of "The Sweeney"), Morris Perry was more genteel, playing the snide Mr Moxon in "Special Branch" and a similar character in a few episodes of "The Sweeney" but he passed muster here, as a thinking man's criminal.
Like a few episodes of the aforementioned "The Sweeney" the Task Force guys sometimes didn't win, and here, the Task Force admit that they got lucky as the robbery was well planned and it was at the very end of the episode that the police caught the crooks, so some tension was maintained.
With limited outside filming and only a couple of sets being used, it might have come across as pedestrian/boring to some viewers, but as Watt's interrogation slowly breaks down the known associate who realises he WON'T get his cut of the million in loot, but he might well still get 5yrs, it comes across as accurate. It's fitting that Watt tells the chap he can go home to his wife as he told them just enough, just in time, to foil the robbers. A solid story well acted. 8/10.
Showing that initiative in the Task Force goes right down to the bobby on the beat, it's PC Snow who happens onto the fact that the security at the town art gallery has been neutralised, and finally they know where and what the target was, a million quid's worth of paintings and a hundred grand in jade, all stolen to order for a crooked collector in Amsterdam.
Guest Star Eric Mason has the face of a villain (he played a crook who kidnapped Jack Regan's daughter in an episode of "The Sweeney"), Morris Perry was more genteel, playing the snide Mr Moxon in "Special Branch" and a similar character in a few episodes of "The Sweeney" but he passed muster here, as a thinking man's criminal.
Like a few episodes of the aforementioned "The Sweeney" the Task Force guys sometimes didn't win, and here, the Task Force admit that they got lucky as the robbery was well planned and it was at the very end of the episode that the police caught the crooks, so some tension was maintained.
With limited outside filming and only a couple of sets being used, it might have come across as pedestrian/boring to some viewers, but as Watt's interrogation slowly breaks down the known associate who realises he WON'T get his cut of the million in loot, but he might well still get 5yrs, it comes across as accurate. It's fitting that Watt tells the chap he can go home to his wife as he told them just enough, just in time, to foil the robbers. A solid story well acted. 8/10.