The English do it so well. No thousand-bullet shoot outs (that almost all miss the target), no silly car chase, no pseudo- moralistic theme that the bad guys suffer and righteousness will prevail. Just a plausible story, superb acting, and great directing and production.
A corrupt security official (Fox) knows when the truck will leave and who else knows the codes. He also knows Haskell (Caine), an evil and unscrupulous career crook. They scheme to hijack the truck that has tons of special bank-note paper.
Enter an unlovely schoolboy (in his one and only movie credit). He hinders but strangely also helps the heist. There are other awful schoolboys who are part of the twists and turns of the story.
A radio black-out is organised, they divert the truck to a lonely road. There are a few casualties along the way, and eventually just one bullet, and one car explosion. Fitting!
There are good performances from support cast including Tim Healy and Rupert Frazer. OK, so it's not perfect, there is a strange, unexplained scene where the boy controls a cage on a construction site and Haskell conveniently goes inside it. A minor detail.
