In his latest beaut book, BLOWING THE BLOODY DOORS OFF (Hodder & Stoughton), Michael Caine says “In my latest movie, KING OF THIEVES, I appear along with many old friends: Ray Winstone, Michael Gambon, Jim Broadbent. But maybe the one that gives me the most pleasure is Tom Courtney.”

There doesn’t seem to be much pleasure in KING OF THIEVES, a film about geriatric gangsters, an over the hill gang, who pull of an audacious heist and then squabble within their ranks, thieving from from themselves.

There doesn’t seem to be much honour among these thieves, their crotchety-osity elevated by psychopathy, paranoia, jealousy and the pains and ailments of old age.

Caine plays the King, Brian, who reigns over the plan, then rains on their parade by abdicating, sensing the his cohorts unstable.

Part of that instability comes from Tom Courtney’s character, Kenny, deciding to use his dodgy and dimwitted in-law, Billy ‘The Fish” Lincoln, played by Michael Gambon.
The other part of the problem is the short fuse temper of Terry, played by Jim Broadbent, aided and abetted by Ray Winstone’s, Danny.

As suspicion and treachery rent the gang, the police take advantage of the tear and close in.

With all the zip and zest of a Zimmer frame, KING OF THIEVES unspools like an episode of Z Cars rather than The Sweeney, shuffling between competence and incontinence.

It seems an odd choice for director James Marsh, a documentary maker now working in narrative feature, whose last film was The Theory of Everything.

Except for a couple of cardboard cops out of Central Casting, the only female in the cast is Francesca Annis as Brian’s wife. Her appearance is all too brief and her absence brings a lingering pall over proceedings.

Use of archival footage, including various shots from the principal actors from their younger years is well placed and a jaunty score by Benjamin Wallfisch, augmented by Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones and other nobles of nostalgia inject an uplift in a film that shows that there is no honour among thieves and no allegiance to self proclaimed kings.