King of Thieves

It’s too bad moviegoers won’t have as much fun watching King of Thieves as its stars probably did making it.

Some legendary British actors shine as brightly as the jewels they pilfer in this otherwise lackluster heist thriller that unfortunately squanders their efforts.

The ensemble setup resembles a geriatric version of Ocean’s Eleven, except that these crooks collaborate in smaller numbers, and with far less technological savvy.

Brian (Michael Caine) is the ringleader of the ragtag group of career criminals, scheming to break into a room of safe deposit boxes in London’s Hatton Garden district. Like Brian, all of his cohorts — played by Jim Broadbent, Tom Courtenay, and Ray Winstone, among others — are seniors, which they figure decreases the likelihood that they’ll be caught.

Although the heist is successful, problems arise when it comes to divvying up more than 2 million pounds’ worth of loot. Once bitter and petty old grudges resurface among the hard-headed perpetrators, it turns into a case of dishonor among thieves.

Oddly, the film joins a recent string of projects about aging criminals, including The Old Man and the Gun and The Mule. And it doesn’t fare well by comparison.

The film smartly keeps the spotlights on its stars, who achieve an almost effortless camaraderie as robbers whose physical dexterity might be in decline, but whose mental acuity is as sharp as ever as they confront mortality, battle various ailments, and fall through the cracks of a broken system.

The visual approach of director James Marsh (The Theory of Everything) achieves a 1970s throwback vibe that’s both slick and gritty. Marsh also pays tribute to the longevity of his performers by including brief shots of each of them in past films, in a way that doesn’t feel forced.

Although it’s breezy and amusing for a while, the screenplay by Joe Penhall (The Road), based on a true story that took place in 2015, stumbles in its effort to build sympathy for its characters with half-hearted justifications for their unscrupulous behavior.

With such depth lacking, the motives remain cloudy. Some cheeky comic touches and rapid-fire editing don’t lend sufficient urgency to the proceedings. As a result, King of Thieves can’t replicate the scandalous excitement suggested by its true-life source material.

Rated R, 107 minutes.