During the Christmas period of 2004, one of the most daring criminal plots ever hatched in the United Kingdom’s history occurred, as £26.5 million in cash was stolen from the headquarters of the then Northern Bank in Belfast.
An armed gang had abducted the family members of two Northern Bank employees in what is known as a ‘tiger kidnapping’ and forced them to walk out of their workplace with a massive haul of sterling banknotes to be loaded into a waiting getaway van over two trips.
In the aftermath, the finger of blame was firmly pointed in the direction of republican paramilitaries, and this even threatened the stability of a Northern Irish peace process that was still in its infancy after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.
As the years went by, a portion of the stolen cash was recovered, but while several individuals were found responsible for associated crimes, no one has ever been directly held accountable or convicted of either the kidnappings or the robbery itself.
No Ordinary Heist, then, is a film based on these events and is the third feature from director Colin McIvor, whom filmgoers may remember for his enjoyable 2017 family adventure Zoo, while also sharing writing duties here with Aisling Corristine, who earns her first credit outside of her short film work.
The story begins ominously with Barry (Éanna Hardwicke) washing the blood from his injured knuckles. He is a young, working-class Catholic who has been entrusted with keys to the bank’s vault.
His casual nature catches the eye and ire of his boss Richard (Eddie Marsan), the mature but seriously stressed man-in-charge, and we soon learn the two men have something of a generational friction.
Richard also has the added dilemma of having to compile a list of his fellow bank employees to be made redundant during the holiday season, so he’s a tad on edge from the offset.
Barry, during a social outing, is approached by unscrupulous characters who are interested in his unique position, and this encounter soon puts in motion the kidnapping of Barry’s mother and Richard’s wife.
The gangsters involved make it clear that if the two men do as they are instructed and empty the bank of millions of pounds on their behalf, their loved ones will be released unharmed.
So, in a nutshell, No Ordinary Heist recreates the events of the real-life Northern Bank robbery while altering names and leaving any political motivations or otherwise of the perpetrators unaddressed.
So, what do we make of it all?
Well, strikingly, this film set in Northern Ireland doesn’t revolve around the Troubles. On one level I admire this attempt to break free of that political heritage that serves as a backdrop to nearly every film from that country.
On the other hand, though, I can’t help but think how bizarre and slightly divorced from reality it is to do so in this instance, where the subject is so close to real criminal events that are openly talked about as being perpetrated by republican paramilitaries.
The film closing with real-life footage of a police press conference only serves to take the viewer out of any fictitious rendering of events, making it rather pointless an exercise.
It is then, in that way, ‘Hamlet without the prince’; the audience goes in with prior knowledge and expectation but is handed an incomplete picture.
So, it is certainly not a sectarian-themed film; at one point we are made aware that while Barry and Richard have a personal friction, they are both of Catholic backgrounds.
The film is far more interested in class divisions.
Barry is clearly a less-than-well-off young man living at home with his mother, while Richard, we see, is more middle-class but trapped in mortgage debt and has a struggling marriage due to his overcommitment at work.
Neither man is in a desirable place in life regardless of his class.
It is then a very pointed critique of the capitalist system we all inhabit, as Richard must carry out staff cuts for a boss on the other side of the globe who cares little about the livelihoods at stake.
Apart from this observation, I can’t offer much else in the way of a compliment to No Ordinary Heist.
The film opens with a tense enough soundscape that unfortunately reoccurs all the way through, becoming a tedious distraction.
The performances were just about up to scratch, although the Northern Irish accents of the two protagonists were occasionally becoming somewhat indecipherable.
The real culprit is the film’s dialogue, I feel.
You can see there are the bones of something very interesting in terms of plot, but the words coming out of the characters’ mouths just feel empty and the interactions a little laboured. It just doesn’t strike as being believable, and the film suffers from a bad script.
I always try to sell the positives of a film, and it is an attractively shot piece, but there just isn’t enough here to keep the viewer satisfied, which is a shame given what interesting material it had to work with.
No Ordinary Heist is 99 minutes long, and you may walk out feeling a bit robbed.
No Ordinary Heist
Directors: Colin McIvor
Screenplay: Aisling Corristine, Colin McIvor
Cast: Eddie Marsan, Éanna Hardwicke, Michelle Fairley, Eva Birthistle
Genre: Crime Drama/ Thriller
Cert: 15A
Rating: 2 Stars
Shane McCormack