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The Hatton Garden Job is a relatively quick turnaround for a real-life heist which took place in April 2015, so its cinema release was just two years after that.
Matthew Goode narrates as the unnamed – and youngest – participant in the robbery. Well, his name is given in the credits as ‘XXX’, but he’s not related to Vin Diesel’s or Ice Cube’s characters in that franchise. However, he links everyone together as the band of mostly old-timers (Larry Lamb, Clive Russell, Phil Daniels, David Calder) come together for one last payday which will make them insanely rich and then allow them to live out their days in luxury on the Costa Del Crime.
Adding in Stephen Moyer (Detour, True Blood) as an ex-cop who knows everything going on in London, no-one’s really putting in any major effort in the acting stakes, and Joely Richardson – in particular – delivers a very dodgy Hungarian accent, but it still passes 90 minutes reasonably entertainingly with some stylish editing and some fast-cutting, a la Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
A US version of this is reportedly in the works, but if they do – just look at the kind of junk they come out with in similar fashion, such as the remake of the ’70s comedy Going In Style. It’s Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Alan Arkin going through the motions of saying, “Cheque, please!” and doing nothing else. It’s shameful.
The film is presented in the original 2.35:1 widescreen theatrical ratio and is in 1080p high definition, and is a cracking picture as you’d expect for a modern film, with no issues whatsoever, bringing us the heist up close.
The sound is in 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, but apart while there’s some split-surround when showing the vault early on, there’s nothing else ot shout about. All dialogue is clear as a bell.
The extras are as follows, but don’t get too excited:
- Inside Hatton Garden Job (10:08): A simple behind-the-scenes piece mixing chat from the cast with clips of the film. It’s the kind of filler you’d get on Sky Movies inbetween films.
- Cast and Crew Interviews (57:06): Well, not ‘interviews’ but ‘soundbites’. Yes, there’s a large amount of them, but rather than showing proper interviews, these are simply tiny little soundbites for TV stations to slot in as and when they’d want to use them at the time of the film’s release, but as a viewer of the Blu-ray (or DVD, depending on your format of choice), they’re too disjointed for me. I just want proper interviews, as the clips lose the natural flow of an interview.
- Music video (3:49): Jason and the Skagonauts – Lawbreaker, a song which doesn’t actually feature in the film and which isn’t any good at all. Pass.
- Audio commentary: with Larry Lamb and director Ronnie Thompson.
Similar to Signature Entertainment’s Pet, there are no subtitles on the disc, while chapters are ridiculously thin at just six over the whole film. However, the last one is reserved for the closing credits, so there’s really just five for the film itself! That’s pathetic, Signature. I always go by the rule of thumb of one every five minutes. How difficult is that??
They seem more concerned about putting annoying trailers before the main menu, rather than in the ‘extras’ section. This is like the old days of rental video(!)
The Hatton Garden Job is out now on Blu-ray, DVD and Amazon Prime, and click on the packshot for the full-size image.
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FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
5 10 7 3 |
| OVERALL | 6 |
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 93 minutes
Studio: Signature Entertainment
Cat.no.: SIG443DR0
Year: 2017
Released: June 12th 2017
Chapters: 6
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: DTS HD Master Audio 5.1
Subtitles: None
Format: 2.35:1
Disc Format: BD50
Director: Ronnie Thompson
Producer: Ben Jacques
Screenplay: Ray Bogdanovich, Dean Lines and Ronnie Thompson
Music: Paul Arnold, Andrew Barnabas, Duncan Forbes and Lol Hammond
Cast:
XXX: Matthew Goode
Brian Reader: Larry Lamb
Marcus Ford: Stephen Moyer
Kenny Collins: Clive Russell
Judas-Jack: Jack Doolan
Danny Jones: Phil Daniels
Erzebet Zslondos: Joely Richardson
Terry Perkins: David Calder
David: Duncan Casey
Frank Baskin: Mark Harris
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.