Film Review: Extraordinary crime tale pays off for Cork’s Éanna
It’s not just on film where he is making his mark. At London’s National Theatre, Hardwicke has been captivating audiences in .
This week, he is back on the big screen with , a gripping retelling of the infamous Northern Bank robbery. Drawing on a shocking true story, it sees director Colin McIvor explore one of the most remarkable crimes in modern Irish history.
In December, 2004, a criminal gang kidnapped two bank workers’ families, forcing the employees to steal £26.5 million from a Belfast vault. Notably, the criminals orchestrated the entire heist without ever entering the bank themselves.
For the sake of the real people involved, their names and details of their lives have been changed in the film.
As Christmas approaches, bank manager Richard (Eddie Marsan) is in a foul mood. With a round of redundancies looming at the bank, he is trying to keep his staff calm about who might be on the chopping block, all while preparing to break the news to those who won’t be returning to work in the New Year.
Things aren’t much better at home, where Richard and his wife Celine (Eva Birthistle) are at odds, with no sign of their marriage improving. Even before the redundancy news, Richard was working around the clock, leaving little time for home life.
He is constantly clashing with Barry (Hardwicke), a young employee he regards as little more than a nuisance. He would probably be quite happy to see Barry made redundant, but Barry needs the work. He lives with his mum, played by Andrea Irvine, and she relies on Barry’s wages to take care of them both.
One night at the pub, Barry makes a serious mistake when his friend introduces him to some dodgy people and starts chatting about Barry’s job at the bank. With the beer flowing, Barry becomes loose-lipped.
Later, he won’t remember much, but he suspects he might have mentioned that he works in the vault.
It is after this that bank robbers turn up at each of the men’s homes, tying up Richard’s wife and Barry’s mum. The robbers have guns and threaten the women not to move or say anything, and then they round up Richard and Barry.
The two men are given strict instructions. They are told to go to the bank the next morning as usual, carry out their normal duties, and wait for further instructions. If they notify the police or tell any other staff member what is happening, their loved ones will be killed.
Both Barry and Richard are visibly on edge, struggling to maintain a facade of normalcy. Any strange behaviour is brushed off as nerves over the redundancies, and their colleagues keep their suspicions to themselves. Only Mags (Michelle Fairley), the bank’s sharp-eyed head of security, senses something is amiss. While she lacks concrete evidence, she resolves to keep a close watch on them.
Meanwhile, in their respective houses, the two women show remarkable resourcefulness as they search for ways to escape their captors, adding another layer of tension to the film. Too often, women in these stories are sidelined as passive victims, but here they are fully realised characters with agency.
The film’s tension dips slightly in the middle, as Barry and Richard struggle to follow the criminal’s instructions. This lull likely stems from budget constraints rather than any fault of the cast. Marsan and Hardwicke deliver superb performances as desperate men trying to hold themselves together for the sake of their loved ones.
Despite its dips, the film is a gripping, claustrophobic drama. It is also refreshing to see a Belfast-set film free of politics
