This brisk, efficient thriller finds its character in the ranks of working class Britain, but includes plenty of high-tech trappings, which (fortunately) are never allowed to overwhelm the blood and sweat of the caper itself. And there's a welcome human element worked into the heist, when a burned-out, middle-aged mechanical wizard drafted into an impossible bank robbery scheme discovers the criminal syndicate that recruited him is using his young son as leverage. The job comes unstuck, naturally, and after a leisurely introduction the plot moves quickly to and capably to a (literally) bang-up climax, after one of the more exciting getaways in recent years. Too bad none of the three credited writers could find a neat resolution for the overabundance of conflicts, or gave much thought to the opposite sex in what turns out to be an almost exclusively male adventure. The hero's (presumably selfish) wife has already abandoned him before the story even begins, and the only other sympathetic woman in the cast is finally revealed to be (what else?) a heartless lesbian informer. Don't leave the theater before the truly oddball closing credits.
Review of Bellman and True
