King of Thieves

The wealth of acting talent and experience prompted me to want to see this, coupled with an interest in the real life story.

I'm stunned to read people find this slow, it's hardly designed as an action packed thriller. It's the telling of real life events. I thoroughly enjoyed it, the story is intriguing, the acting is first rate, plus it contains some very humorous moments.

It begins off in quite a light hearted way, it's jolly and funny, but oncr the deed is done, it takes on a more serious tone, the laughs are fewer, and the true greed of the characters comes out.

Excellent performances, Caine, Gambon, Courtenay and Winstone all excellent, but for me it was Jim Broadbent who stole the show, he was superb. Francesca Annis was lovely in it, though sadly not for very long.

It's not a classic, but well worth seeing for the wealth of acting talent. 8/10

This film very much feels like a metaphor for the actors themselves, one last go at making some money and it all going wrong.

The film didn't know what it wanted to be, a gritty crime drama or last of the summer wine.

No back story on the gang at all apart from 10 seconds of old footage. We're rushed into the heist scene and before you know it it's all done and dusted. That leaves time for endless squabbling of characters you don't really know anything about.

A strange casting with Michael Gambon, arguably the best actor there - cast as a bumbling idiot. Jim Broadbent playing the nasty hard man, which just doesn't suit him given the film's we're all used to seeing him in.

Ray Winston was good and played well throughout the film, but again a very tenuous relationship to the gang and zero back story makes it hard to get involved with the characters.

The production quality for me was also let down, had the feel of a low budget tv drama, though I suspect this is because they clearly blew the budget on the cast.

I'd save this one for a long haul flight or when it's free on Amazon.

The bulk of the biggest heist ever carried out on UK soul that everyone (at least in Britain) knows about is done by the hour mark. The rest of the film tackles the group politics, mistrusts and backstabbing that tore the geriatric heist crew apart. This is no bad thing as it appears to be the best part of the true story from which this film derives it's material.

Michael Caine leads the charge on a cast supercharged with British talent: Tom Courtney, Jim Broadbent, Ray Winstone, Paul Whitehorse and an underused Michale Gambon. The interaction between this rag tag group of British acting talent, transposed perfectly to the gang of criminal minds at the story's core, is electric to watch especially considering how much the actors seem to be playing characterised versions of themselves or past famous roles. Indeed, the last few scenes use archive footage of the actors' past roles (Caine in The Ipcress File, etc) to highlight their characters' criminal pasts to great effect.

It's a fine heist film that still manages to create tension despite the audience knowing full well how the story ends - however, it doesn't add a whole lot to a genre that's been overcrowded for decades. That's not to say it should be avoided; nay, it offers the best chance of us Joe Public in understanding what happened over that extremely profitable Easter Weekend.

Best quote: TBC

Yet another account of the 2015 Hatton Garden robbery that was pulled off by a bunch of geriatric career criminals, and which seems to hold a strange fascination for filmmakers and audiences alike. This one benefits from a stellar British cast (Caine, Winstone, Broadbent, Courteney, Gambon, Whitehouse) and its decision to focus on the disintegration of the gang's initial cameraderie almost as soon as the heist is underway rather than playing safe with unrealistic feel-good vibes. The real gang were unpleasant men, and to portray them as anything else would be a whitewash. Caine is finally showing his age (he's barely seen moving throughout) but still delivers, as do the rest of the veteran players.

No, there are no big car chases, or explosions. No fancy lasers, or big combat scenes. However, it is a fun story of aging burglars looking to score their final hurrah, portrayed by a slew of veteran actors who still have the skills to go from dottering elder to angry thug. Loved the use of the clips from their previous films as flashbacks. It was a refreshing change from CGI or Photoshop aging.