King of Thieves

A crew of retired crooks pulls off a major heist in London's jewelry district.

Wow, back from holiday and straight into the cinema! King of thieves was a film I was really interested and excited to see, not just because of the great lineup of actors within it but also from the really exciting and humorous scenes I had seen from the adverts. King of Thieves is definitely an interesting film in the manner in which is portrays the characters and plot, but what makes this film especially interesting is that it is actually based off a true story. Ok, Michael Caine didn't steal a bunch of jewels (as far as we know...) but it portrays the famous 'Hatton Garden heist' in 2015. But did the film manage to get away with the jewels and be a success, or did it get caught red handed by the cops? Here are my thoughts.

You know the drill, I'll start off with what I liked about the film. I was really impressed with the beginning of the film, not just because it laid out the plot very nicely by foreboding but it also used a twist to really help to grab the audience and make it engaging and interesting from the beginning. By using a twist of a description of the history of diamonds and jewelry instead of the characters history, we were immediately given a clue as to what the film would entail and how it would play out. But then, by giving us a series of shots that showed each character as a young villain compared to the character now, we were similarly given a good idea of the roles and characteristics that the different characters had and how they would fit into the film. It also had the impact of introducing them to us really nicely and effectively too though the use of a cool and unique series of camera shots. Similarly, the film was able to portray these characters as really interesting by using the saying 'don't judge a book by its cover' through showing us camera shots of different old people to give the audience one opinion and then showing them setting off fireworks, swearing and hanging in groups to completely oppose this stereotype and to definitely break the typical 'old person' mould - if that's a thing! During these scenes, the film really set up the characters and plot relationship very nicely, by giving us an idea of why all of the characters needed the money that a heist would provide, from needing a suitable place to stay after retirement, to wanting to start up his own business. We were shown first hand the reasons why these characters needed to pull off a heist, it just gave the plot and introduction to the film some authentic scenes which helped to solidify the plot and characters at the beginning.

But what I liked about this film was the variety of emotions that it provided, it wasn't just humour or even sadness, but anger and confusion too. The film was able to use the characters old age to make them miss basic elements such as security cameras, undercover police officers and number plate recognition to create confusion amongst the audience, how could someone miss all these basic elements? But it really helped to show the old age of the characters, and how they used to be successful criminals but in today's age, they are useless and awful and oblivious to obvious signs. And showing this helped to add authenticity to the characters because it helped them to match their stereotypes, of being alone and lonely sometimes, to being grumpy and argumentative. The characters personalities weren't too complex which made them fairly easy to relate to and understand for the audience, especially as their relationships changed hugely throughout the film, especially during the fight scenes and bitching, which added an element of surprise into the film. As if the characters weren't just battling to steal the diamonds, but they were battling each other simultaneously too. It really felt like these characters had something to prove aswell, as the film gradually introduced us to the characters as being old and useless, taking on a heist seemed like a large challenge for them. It just gave the typical criminal robbery film a much needed twist that helped to keep it fresh and unique to other crime films. The heist was made interesting and exciting in a similar manner to the characters relationships too, by surprising us with failures and quick camera shots it made the whole heist really exciting from preparation to having the 'treasure' back at their house on the table! In a way this helped to get the audience involved too, as for some parts it felt as if we were in the room frantically trying to steal money and diamonds with the characters too, maybe because of the shaky camera having a handheld feel and strong impact. This merged very nicely with the choice of setting and location for the film too, by using the London back streets it just helped the film to have a typical 'crime heist' feel to it with small streets and squeezing through alleys with jewels and bags of money, it also helped to personify the subtle mood of the film too by essentially matching the type of location to the types of characters that were in the film.

I really enjoyed seeing the relationships of the characters develop throughout the film too, and it made these much more believable and realistic, and seeing them gossiping about each other definitely helped them to be seen as real people instead of characters within a film which I really liked. But what I liked most about this film was the underlying meanings within the film which were subtle but had a big meaning, for example seeing Basil and Brian talking in the cafe really portrayed the idea that Brian had lost his criminal skills and that he was acting as a mentor and father figure to Basil who was quiet and afraid. Similarly to when Basil was bullied and teased for wearing a disguise of a long wig with a hat, but then he actually had the last laugh as he was the only member of the group not caught and arrested. The film was full of simple messages and little stories like this, that were placed in the film really nicely and helped to make it effective and entertaining to the audience. Also seeing Brian as a sad old man vs the rest of his group adds in a bit of empathy to his character and portrays this stereotype really effectively, again causing a variety of different emotional responses to challenge the other emotions that were sprung onto us throughout the film. I also really liked the twist in the films plot towards the end too, by using a 'heist within a heist'. This was completely unpredictable and had a really positive impact as it was definitely an engaging twist to the films plot that helped to liven it up. Whilst seeing Brian and the police's varied perspectives helped to give us a head start of the characters. Speaking of the plot, I think that the idea for the film was really good. Matching the characters from the actual heist in terms of personality was really effective for the audience too, and definitely made the characters really interesting and engaging for us.

I'll admit it, there were a few parts to the film I liked. But, on the other hand, there were also a lot that I didn't like. Where to begin? I'll start with the word confusing. This film was so confusing for so many reasons, I had a lot of questions and confusing moments whilst watching this film that it just didn't seem to answer, therefore making the viewing experience to be really poor. For example, why did they rob that building? What were their criminal backgrounds? Why was there tension between the characters? Did the film's creator expect us to believe that the characters would be so naive that they wound't protect themselves from security cameras and number plate tracking? And many more. They weren't helped by the plot speed, the film seemed to be in one place establishing the characters and then suddenly they were scoping out a building to rob and then the next minute they were actually robbing it, there was no build up to the building or the characters to make them seem scary or even engaging really. But the whole heist scene and preparation scenes flew by so quickly that they were actually fairly boring because of how little I understood what was going on beforehand. The mysterious effect surrounding some of the characters aswell didn't have a positive effect, but instead just made them confusing and irrelevant into the film's plot, as if they were just an add on to the film. They had an unprofessional and bad effect on the film.

But another major issue in the film was related to authenticity. I know I say it a lot but it relates to a key aspect of crime films, realism. This film was not really realistic at all, for example the burglar alarm that was going off for a few minutes in the jewelry shop surely would've attracted more attention? As well as having a police squad that seemed to have all the evidence they needed to arrest the robbers, but for some reason they waited ages to arrest them? There were just far too many questions and confusing parts during this film that made it really difficult to decipher how good/bad it was. The character dialogue was poor too, not only was it confusing but it didn't really engage or excite the audience at all, it didn't even help to explain the plot either! Probably the reason I left the cinema with so many questions about what was going on.

Overall, it was a really confusing film, great idea for the plot but it was poorly executed. I would give this film a 6.5, it is a shame because it had potential but I just cannot overlook the extremely poor elements of this film which make it so confusing and unbelievable to watch really. But to be fair, the plot was fresh and was really well thought out as an idea. But like I said, it was just wasn't executed very well at all, which made the film come across as poor to the audience and definitely a film the legendary Michael Caine would rather forget. If you've got an unlimited card then maybe watch it if you've got nothing to do, but I wouldn't recommend to go and watch this if you're paying.

Thank you for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed reading it and that you didn't miss me too much! :P I hope you have a great day and I really appreciate you coming over and reading my blog, it means a lot to me.