The Great Train Robbery (2013)

Touches You

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This isn't the one with Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland, and the inimitable Leslie-Anne Down. It's the story of a gang of thieves who robbed a train in the early 1960s and made of with about 2.3 million pounds, worth about 11 million in today's money. It was made for television by the Brits, who do this sort of thing very well, while nobody in the US bothers to try -- with the possible exception of HBO.I won't go into detail about the plot. When it comes to stopping a train, moving it again, uncoupling cars, and changing green lights to amber, the dozen or so gang members are a lot of nudniks. During a practice run, and having read a child's book on driving a train, they manage to start the locomotive and actually get it moving forward. But they don't know how to slow it down, let alone stop it, and they bail out while the mammoth diesel sails off into the night.It gets more serious and far more tense later, when they execute the elaborate plan. Luke Evans, sporting a tremendous development of latissimus dorsi, struts around giving orders. It's a risky business, of course, but one million pounds is a lot of money. A few bungles here and there, and the Bobbies are closing in on them. They separate and begin to hightail it out of London. End of Part One. Part Two gives us the police side of things.If you like the musical score, buy two Miles Davis albums -- "Kind of Blue" and "Porgy and Bess."

Put me down for another Yank who ranks it a solid 7 I thought the three hours were tightly edited with no wasted scenes. What critical info, if any, was left out I do not know, as I watched this as a preliminary to reading about the robbery. Altho I can't comment on the period detail to the extent other posters here have ("the license plate serials actually didn't change til six month later" - WOW), I think the setting, styles, and lingo were all of a piece with other 60's London films and recreations.So I enjoyed this quite a bit, including the levity - self-proclaimed "wanker boss", "key up me jacksie", Butler's smile on Thursday mornings, etc, which "offset Broadbent's stern gravity and Evans's Jon Hamm like 60's charm offensive.I especially liked the portrayal of the Butler-Williams relationship and how despite Butler's fears his underling would give more away to his "snouts" than he got, Williams' contacts did lead to at least some grassing.The final Heat-style "confrontation" with Reynolds claiming a "victimless" crime leading to such enormous sentences (yet, he was out in nine) would lead to the much greater use of guns in robberies seemed egregiously revisionist, but I suppose among the many contributing factors to that sad development was the sentencing in this case. Goody apparently was straight out framed (Paul Anderson in another wonderful performance.) Certainly in hindsight a crime committed by 15 men with at least half a dozen accomplices and netting so much cash was fated to go bust. But that Butler had to delay retirement for so long was a testimony not just to his vocation, but also to the robbers' use of that critical "luck" factor. The fact Butler left a mess for Nipper Read and had allowed Williams to go way too far off the reservation is subject matter for other films.Still, film has to make an emotional as well as an informational mark, and I'm left wanting to chalk this one up for the bad boys. Mix south London and Brighton firms and you apparently got a very lively lot. "Dreaming big", and establishing the same bond of camaraderie the Flying Squad unit did evidently trumped even the millions. Or so this engrossing film would have us believe.

I have to agree with the review by Alan Baker as to the factual errors in the episode entitled "A Coppers Tale". I am a nephew of the late Chief Supt Tommy Butler, and although only a young boy at the time of the robbery, I remember distinctly that the car he used during that investigation was a Wolsey that he used to drive himself, I lived en route from Central London to Buckinghamshire (just off of the old A40) and Uncle Tom used to call in for a cup of tea frequently on his way back to London, and i never once saw him being driven by another police officer and definitely not in a Jaguar. Another factual error was that his home as shown in the film looked like a nice suburban semi detached private house, when in reality he lived with my grandmother in a rather shabby terraced council house in Barnes.

This two part drama was a retelling of the The Great Train of 1963. The first part was the Robbers Tale which was a straightforward story of the planning and execution of the robbery. This was the most fascinating aspect of the drama as over the years, the personalities of some of the robbers (Ronnie Biggs, Buster Edwards) has overshadowed the events of the Train Robbery and the main players involved. Luke Evans, Martin Compston and Paul Anderson give the best performances.The second part was the Policeman's Tale and featured Jim Broadbent as DCS Butler, hell bent in getting the gang like the sheriff of an old wild west town which was very much how he was introduced. This was more procedural and not as interesting or riveting as the first part.Incidentally both parts had different directors but Butler was just too much of a dullard and Broadbent looks too old to even be playing a cop on the verge of retirement. Able support by Robert Glenister as the exasperated and interesting to see that 'Slipper of the Yard' (played by Nick Moran) who in later years seemed to have been more prominent in the media as the cop hunting the train robbers was more of a relegated character in this drama. Well now Slipper is dead he will not be able to sue for his lack of prominence as in the past when he was alive he was rather quick to shout libel for any slight shown on his character!