The reason why heist films and series are so popular is that they bring together different characters all pulling towards the same purpose, which is planning the perfect crime. Heists happen — or at least they’re attempted — in real life, of course, and a new docuseries examines a particularly audacious one from back in 2000.
Opening Shot: As we see scenes of London, a voice says, “The essence of any great story is the ‘fuck me’ moment, one where you go, ‘Fuck me! Really?'”
The Gist: The Diamond Heist is a three-part docuseries, written and directed by Jesse Vile, with Guy Ritchie as one of the executive producers, about an attempted robbery at London’s Millennium Dome in November of 2000. The target of the robbery was Millennium Star, a flawless 203-carat diamond on display at the De Beers installation during London’s millennium exhibition. That single diamond was worth around £200 million, with the entire display worth £350 million. If the attempt succeeded, it would have been the biggest robbery in the history of the UK.
Via scripted reenactments, archival media coverage and interviews with people on both sides of the heist, the audacious attempt is recounted with some admiration and wistfulness almost a quarter century later, even if the episodes are constructed to feel like a scripted drama.
Among those Vile talks to are Lee Wenham, a member of the ragtag group of career criminals that planned and tried to execute the heist. We also hear from Beth Wenham, Lee’s daughter, who was a young child at the time of the attempt. After a failed armored car robbery that would have netted his group millions, Lee was seeking a job that would show his father, also a career criminal, that he could do a big job. Lee’s dad introduced him to Ray Beston, who was looking to steal the Millennium Star.
Easier said than done, of course. The De Beers display is in a vault with a timed lock on it, and in a display with tempered glass that’s resistant to shattering attempts. Plus, the Millennium Dome is a high-profile location. Because of that, the group that Beston assembled figured out it was best to make the attempt when the vault was open to visitors. That’s when Beston brought in his brother-in-law, Metropolitan Police officer Michael Wearing, who was working perimeter security at the dome. What the group didn’t know, however, was that they were being watched by the Met Police’s Flying Squad.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Diamond Heist seriously feels like a docuseries version of The Gentlemen, at least stylistically.
Our Take: There is a whole lot of style to The Diamond Heist, but that style seems to be hiding a surprising lack of substance. Vile, with what seems like a whole lot of guidance by Ritchie, decided to make the docuseries look and feel more like an scripted action movie.
That’s all well and good — far be it from us to decry someone trying to make the sometimes-dry docuseries format more interesting — but in the process they’ve also added so much filler to the series that actually makes things less interesting than the loud music and scripted reenactments would indicate.
Given that Vile is going to be interviewing people on both sides of this story, the story isn’t just going to be about Wenham’s life of crime. But a whole lot of the first episode lingers there. There’s a reenactment of the failed armored car robbery and lots of information about Wenham’s criminal upbringing. While some biographical context is always welcome, it feels like this kind of extended information is repeated in the first episode in order to make something more complex than it actually is.
The crux of any good heist film is the group of disparate criminals getting together and crafting a complex plan based on the collective knowledge of everyone in the group. But this heist isn’t as complex as it might seem; it was more like a high-risk smash-and-grab. So how this merited three episodes is anyone’s guess. But the stretched nature of the story results in dead moments that belie how action-packed the story is.
Heck, we’d even be OK to hear more about how much of a failure the Millennium Dome (now The O2 arena) and the exhibition that was in it was. We love hearing about disastrous projects like that. But in reality, this would have been better as a 90-minute documentary or, better yet, a Guy Ritchie-directed scripted thriller.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: As the second episode is going to concentrate on the Flying Squad, the Met Police’s elite major crimes unit, we hear from DCI John Swinfield at the end of the first episode.
Sleeper Star: We’re not sure about what perspective Beth Wenham can give to this story, given she was a small child when this robbery attempt happened, but she does make for a fun interview.
Most Pilot-y Line: The reenactment of the armored car robbery is presented with The Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up” on the soundtrack. Not sure if they could have used a more on-the-nose needle drop for that scene. Vile does make up for it by using the song “Reverend Black Grape” by Black Grape when describing England under Tony Blair at the turn of the millennium.
Our Call: STREAM IT. While The Diamond Heist can get a bit draggy and distracted by its own stylishness, the story of the attempted robbery of the Millennium Star encapsulates a good amount of what life in England was like in 2000. And even an uneven heist story is still a heist story.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.