An ambitious, fictionalized account of the 1963 'Great Train Robbery' - which only takes up the last third or so. The rest is car chase (excellent, by the next-year director of Bullitt), London in the late sixties full of British cars, Leyton Orient Football Club (before big money got into soccer), and Stanley Baker not showing much emotion as he plans the train heist with various guys who were sooner or later to appear in Minder, The Sweeney, The Professionals, etc either as cops or robbers.
To be honest, while the build-up is slow and steady, and the fairly tense robbery itself is done music-free in the Rififi manner, the final collapse of the caper is an anti-climax in true Sweeney style; a gang of Cockney robbers is completely overwhelmed by three police Jaguars.
Except of course that Stanley Baker (Paul Clifton) gets away. Perhaps putting a question mark in the The End (The?End) is a clue that the storylining department ran out of steam.
Much better than 'Buster', all the same.
To be honest, while the build-up is slow and steady, and the fairly tense robbery itself is done music-free in the Rififi manner, the final collapse of the caper is an anti-climax in true Sweeney style; a gang of Cockney robbers is completely overwhelmed by three police Jaguars.
Except of course that Stanley Baker (Paul Clifton) gets away. Perhaps putting a question mark in the The End (The?End) is a clue that the storylining department ran out of steam.
Much better than 'Buster', all the same.