"King of Thieves" is a movie based on a daring robbery in April, 2015 where a group of mostly elderly men managed to steal between 13-15 million British pounds. Oddly, however, the film is far from compelling and a bit of a disappointment.

The cast includes many excellent elderly British actors..Michael Caine, Jim Broadbent, Tom Courtenay and Michael Gambon among others. However, the film just never worked for me for one huge reason....there was no reason given to like or care about these nasty old men. In most of the great heist films, there is a hook...a reason to either care about the men or hate the folks about to be robbed so that you pull for the criminals. Here, however, there is no compelling reason...none. And, if they didn't provide that, perhaps it could have worked with an injection of humor....but this was something clearly lacking in the movie. With the actors involved, I really wanted to love the film but found myself curiously disconnected and bored. Not a terrible film but one that simple wastes the talents of these great actors.

By the way, as a history teacher I usually hate when true stories are embellished...I want the plain unvarnished truth. But considering the amount they stole was changed ten fold in the story, why not further embellish it to make it interesting?

KING OF THIEVES is the third film I've seen dealing with the true-life Hatton Garden robbery in which a gang of elderly thieves made off with millions in stolen jewellery. The first was an awful independent production starring a guy from DOCTORS; the less said about it the better. The second, starring Larry Lamb, was better, but uneven. Sadly, KING OF THIEVES falls somewhere between the two camps, a film let down by very poor scripting.

The impressive thing about this is the heavyweight cast, with numerous old-timers showing up for affect. Not only do you get Michael Caine as the lead, but he's joined by Jim Broadbent (giving a surprisingly sinister turn),Tom Courtenay, Ray Winstone and plenty of others. But the only thing they're given to do in this laboured, paceless story is to constantly bark profanity at each other. There's no wit here, just one crude expression and comeback after another, and it quickly becomes grating. The direction is perfunctory and despite adequate production values, you can't help but feel this is a wasted opportunity.

This is reportedly based on the 2015 Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary which took place over the long Easter weekend. A group of old time criminals are gathered by Brian Reader (Michael Caine). His son Basil (Charlie Cox) works a straight job as a fibre optics technician who comes to him with an idea to rob safe deposit boxes in the diamond district. He gathers a crew of old timers, Terry Perkins (Jim Broadbent),John Kenny Collins (Tom Courtenay),Carl Wood (Paul Whitehouse),Danny Jones (Ray Winstone),and Billy "The Fish" Lincoln (Michael Gambon).

I love these old geezers and I generally love caper movies. This is not an elaborate scheme but I do love the simplicity. There are issues with this crew. They talk way too loud, way too publicly, and way too carelessly about their criminal exploits. It's a deliberate choice by the movie and it could work with some reasonable changes. I like that the cops are nameless and voiceless as they track down and investigate the robbery. I would have made all those scenes into a montage after the crew is arrested. That way most of the movie would make it seem like they are escaping with the loot. Only afterwards would their capture be revealed to be inevitable. I also like the ten seconds of old movies where the younger versions of the old geezers look like thugs. Here's the thing. I laughed when Jim Broadbent gets tough. It's so against his type that it's hilarious and I love it. There are issues and I would definitely make other editing choices. Overall, I love these old dudes.