Obligatory intro action sequence: divers descending into a shipwrecked Spanish galleon. We all know Spanish galleons are laden with gold and priceless artifacts. The pirates are dredging up lots of loot, but head pirate Walter Moreland (Liam Cunningham) is looking for an something else. He urges diver James (Sam Riley) to take a risk to find that mysterious something. Plot check: will it be an advancing storm or sea-borne cops that foil their thievery? Or both? Ah, just cops: Spanish customs agents swoop in via helicopter and speed boat. (How do you manage to sneak up on someone on the open sea?) The next scene finds a court confiscating their booty. Which is whisked off to “The Vault,” a famously impenetrable safe in the Bank of Spain.
Cut to fresh-faced Thom Johnson (Freddie Highmore), a genius engineer, straight out of Cambridge University, who’s spurning ever-escalating offers of compensation from oil companies and other capitalist pirates. Instead, he lets alluring Lorraine (Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey) lure him to a rendezvous with, you guessed it, Moreland. Who recruits Thom as the newest member of his band of pirates. Why? You guessed it. To break into The Vault of course, and snatch that prized artifact, which will lead them to a legendary treasure said to have hidden away centuries ago by equally legendary privateer Sir Francis Drake.
As you will guess, The Vault is ridiculously foolproof. Moreland’s merry band of pirates must figure out exactly where the vault is, how to get to it, what makes it so special, and how to defeat it. And, of course, get away. They’ll have to slink through tunnels, infiltrate the bank itself, elude snooping MI6 agent Margaret (Famke Janssen), and outwit the bank’s maniacally devoted head of security.
And they’re on a timeline: It’s only a matter of days before experts figure out what they actually have in the loot. And things could go wrong. It’s the World Cup finals, being played on a huge screen just outside the bank. They’re counting on the World Cup finale to provide a distraction. If Spain plays the final.
See It
It’s always fun to turn your head to one side, like a puppy trying to figure out a new sound, and count all of the implausible elements of the beginning dive, the discovered access to The Vault, the solution used to defeat The Vault’s unique safety mechanism, and the like. But you’re not watching to learn how to break into an impenetrable vault yourself. You’re watching because there’s enough fun – and in this case, just barely enough fun – to be had as you root for the thieves to score.
Passing grades for acting. Freddie Highmore does a good job of being the confident genius who still appreciates that he’s a bit out of his league with this high-class gang and charming Lorraine. Liam Cunningham is fine as the stolid, fully committed leader who’d sacrifice himself and his team to achieve his lifelong goal. Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey is very watchable in a role that gives her an opportunity to try out a few different personas and even more hair and costume changes.
And you can guess this too: It ends by teasing a sequel. And it won’t be hard to guess: There won’t be any sequel. This has to be enough. And it is … just barely.