3410. The Hatton Garden Job (2017)

Starring: Matthew Goode, Larry Lamb, Joely Richardson

Director: Ronnie Thompson

Running Time: 93 mins

The Hatton Garden Job is a British film about the true story of a group of elderly men who pulled off one of the largest heists in British history, when they stole £14m from a high-security underground vault.

There’s a good chance that you’ll remember the Hatton Garden Job when it really happened a few years ago. It was quite an exciting affair to watch on the news, which makes this film adaptation all the more perplexing.

A painfully dull affair from start to finish, this movie really undoes a lot of the thrill and mystery of the real-life robbery with a meandering and rather dour portrayal of a story that certainly has a lot more character.

After all, this same story has been depicted far better in the later film King Of Thieves, starring Michael Caine among others. The big difference, however, is that while King Of Thieves really plays up the folk-hero status of a group of old men pulling off a massive heist, The Hatton Garden Job is far less charismatic in that vein, seeming more intent to tell a grisly, macho crime story.

Now, there’s always a case to be made for taking things a little more seriously, but the problem is that The Hatton Garden Job is an almost excessively macho affair from the word go. While there is a little bit of attention paid to the strength of the bond between the members of the heist team, the film is full of rather dull confrontations and such that really don’t add much to the story of the heist itself.

Where King Of Thieves draws great humour and character out of the rag-tag bunch of men who plan and execute this groundbreaking robbery, The Hatton Garden Job is far blander, doing little to foster much in the way of real character depth or likable humour at any point throughout.

As a result, the movie proves to be a really dour watch from start to finish, never really living up to the legendary status of the real-life heist, and instead playing out as a kind of wannabe Guy Ritchie movie. In short, The Hatton Garden Job is a disappointing watch, and far inferior to King Of Thieves, so that’s why I’m giving it a 6.2 overall.