Hatton Garden

The Hatton Garden robbery has been well documented, so I won't go into the plot here. Several other films have been made on the same subject but none really did it justice. This four part series starting with the robbery allows the characters to feel believable rather than the cardboard presentations portrayed in the other offerings on the same story. and is superior in every sense.

All the cast here are stand out, how anyone can call any of the actors sub par is beyond me. Evidently they don't understand the craft. All the leads, especially David Hayman, Timothy Spall, Geoff Bell and Alex Norton all give first rate performances as the old timers well past their criminal sell by date. With four episodes to tell the story more time is given into the police investigation and is notable for the actress T'nia Miller giving another stand out performance in an under written role. The time given to the Police investigation into how the gang was caught makes the series more compelling. And the fall out the gang experienced after the robbery underscores the old motto, there is no honour among thieves. They're not the most sympathetic bunch of villains and It is good that screen time is also given to a composite character whose life and family business is ruined as a result of the robbery, highlighting the fact that the resulting crime did leave victims in its wake, whose lives were changed forever by the robbery.

If true crime drama is of interest then this is certainly recommended viewing, however this is a well acted and well made drama regardless of the genre and one worth your time.

A great script and memorable acting from Timothy Spall and David Hayman playing men who know it's madness but just have to steal big - it's what they do.

An audacious group of retired thieves and robbers unite to pull off a huge heist during The Easter weekend of 2015.

It's a very well made, very well acted series. I imagine bits of it were dramatised, but having read up extensively about it, they seemed to stick to the core.

If I'm honest, I think parts one and two drag a little, they could really have condensed them into one, parts three and four however are excellent. It gets better and better as it progresses.

Part four reveals the tensions and rivalries that exist, the term about thieves falling out had never been more true, you'll wonder if they'd have been a little wiser, and less greedy, it they'd have gotten away with it.

Timothy Spall and Kenneth Cranham stand out for me, but the whole cast are excellent.

8/10.

The most we had any right to expect from "Hatton Garden" was a fairly accurate reconstruction of the crime and yet another addition to that long line of British gangster pictures and TV shows. What we got instead was one of the all-time great heist pictures, be that on television or in the cinema, and a masterclass in great acting, helped along by Paul Whittington's superb direction and a brilliant screenplay from Jeff Pope and Terry Winsor.

Spread over four nights it told the story of the 2015 Easter Weekend Hatton Garden robbery and its immediate aftermath. The first two nights concentrated solely on the robbery, filmed with a documentary=like precision and up there with the very best of them. The subsequent two nights showed how the police finally caught up with these, not-very-bright, geriatric robbers.

As the thieves who couldn't agree on anything, (it's amazing they were able to pull the job off in the first place and they very nearly didn't), Timothy Spall, Kenneth Cranham, David Hayman, Brian F. O'Byrne, Geoff Bell and Alex Norton were absolutely terrific with Spall and Cranham taking the lion's share of the honors. This wasn't just a bunch of fine British actors playing at being stock criminals but beautifully fleshed-out portrayals of living, breathing ordinary individuals and the real pleasure of "Hatton Garden" was watching great actors act. Yes, it was also a hugely entertaining crime caper, all the better for being based on fact, exciting and often very funny but it was so much more; proof that television can sometimes leave the current cinema trailing in its wake.

All 4 episodes were fantastically well written and well balanced with each episode giving you what most would think a very real portrayal of a load of old lags doing what they couldn't stop doing . One thing that comes over in reality is that these are a bunch of greedy , thoughtless and selfish people that cared nothing for the lives ruined . We know the end and great they were caught !