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In November, 1983, £26 million of gold bullion was stolen from the Brink’s-Mat warehouse close to Heathrow Airport. The factor concerning the heist was that the armed robbers had no concept that gold could be there; they have been searching for about £1 million in overseas foreign money they knew was there. What occurs within the aftermath of this unintended heist, one of many greatest in British historical past, has been fictionalized in a brand new sequence.
THE GOLD: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: As a safety guard mumbles alongside to “Again On The Chain Gang”, he pours 4 coffees. He comes out and offers coffees to his colleagues. Immediately, armed robbers bust into their workplace. “London, twenty sixth November, 1983.”
The Gist: The robbers in some way know the keycodes to get via layers of safety gates, and so they deliver two guards with them to get into the vault, the place a lot of overseas foreign money is being saved. As one of many guards fumbles to recollect the important thing code, one of many robbers seems to be over and smiles at what he sees. We don’t see it, however there’s a large pile of gold bullion simply sitting there.
The theft was on the Brink’s-Mat warehouse, close to Heathrow Airport. And the robbers in some way managed to get 3 tons of bullion — price nearly £26 million — of their van.
DIs Nicki Jennings (Charlotte Spencer) and Tony Brightwell (Emun Elliott) of the Metropolitan Police’s “Flying Squad” – i.e. their main crimes division — get the decision concerning the theft. They discover out concerning the gold, which was simply there briefly, ready to be transported to Hong Kong the following morning.
Within the meantime, Micky McAvoy (Adam Nagaitis), the chief of the theft gang, brings in Kenny Noye (Jack Lowden), whom he doesn’t know however has heard is among the solely individuals who can fence a haul like this. Noye is aware of what must be executed, given the scrutiny this theft will get: Get the gold out of South London and put it and the cash its price again within the financial system with out arousing suspicion.
Kenny recruits John Palmer (Tom Cullen), who really owns and operates a crucible within the woods close to his residence; John can take a pure gold ingot, soften it down and masks its purity, then fence the ensuing bar. And with information of the theft circulating, the worth of black-market gold is skyrocketing.
Jennings and Brightwell discover out that this case is just too huge for even the Flying Squad to deal with; Brian Boyce (Hugh Bonneville), Scotland Yard’s former quantity 2 within the counterterrorism division, is main a particular job power into investigating the theft. At first, he simply needs the detectives’ recordsdata on the case, however Jennings convinces him that they’ve invaluable insights, provided that they have been the primary on the scene.
One in every of them is the safety guard they encountered with a shiner, who claimed that he hid like a scared youngster. His story didn’t add up, and the theft crew wanted some kind of inside man, so Boyce and the detectives handle to get him to pin issues on McAvoy.
One other side of attempting to fence the gold is laundering the cash as soon as the gold is bought off. For that, Kenny contacts Edwyn Cooper (Dominic Cooper), a barrister who has made his identify identified defending corrupt cops and South London criminals; he will get in contact by way of Gordon Parry (Sean Harris), a fraudster who has labored with Cooper previously. The proposal is to funnel the cash via Swiss financial institution accounts and shell firms that put money into riverfront actual property improvement tasks. And whereas Kenny thinks the rich, proper-seeming Cooper might be intimidated by the South London crime bigwigs Kenny is aware of, “males who’re from the streets,” into taking a ten% minimize, Cooper responds, “I’m from these fucking streets,” tells him he is aware of it’s Brink’s-Mat cash, and calls for 25%.
What Reveals Will It Remind You Of? Despite the fact that The Gold relies on a real story, in numerous methods it performs out like a reasonably customary British cop present, alongside the traces of Line Of Responsibility.
Our Take: Created by Neil Forsyth, The Gold has numerous layers, and whereas Forsyth manages to arrange all the key gamers and their motivations within the first hour of the sequence, it nonetheless in some way manages to be a little bit of a slog, with a good bit of character-building scenes that don’t add a lot to the story.
We’re not saying that each one of these character-building scenes are pointless, although. There’s a scene the place Cooper talks to his spouse Isabelle (Ruth Bradley) about having the ability to reside the lavish way of life they lead with out having to be depending on her household’s cash to do it. Additionally, in his discussions with Kenny about laundering the proceeds from the sale of the gold, he communicates that his upper-crust demeanor has been cultivated through the years and is under no circumstances a sign of the place he’s come from.
That helps us see simply the place Cooper is coming from, why he’s prepared to have interaction in such a dangerous endeavor and in some way confidently assume he can handle it. Among the different character-setting scenes, just like the cops within the Flying Squad complaining about their retiring boss asking them to revisit circumstances, or Kenny looking within the woods fill in some colour however really feel extra like filler.
What The Gold is meant to point out is how concerned this case was; Boyce tells Jennings and Brightwell that he’s extra excited about following the cash than nicking the individuals who did the preliminary theft. That makes for a extra fascinating drama as effectively, taking it from easy “cops and robbers,” as Boyce says, to seeing simply who handles this cash and the place it goes. After all, that makes for a way more tough case, however positively one which might be instructed over a half-dozen episodes.
The performances are spot-on, particularly Bonneville as Boyce and Lowden as Kenny; they appear to be the alpha figures on both facet of this case, given their respective needs for energy and management. We particularly loved Lowden’s skill to play Kenny as a working-class bloke with upper-class ambitions, not not like Cooper however with much more of the tough edges that the barrister managed to sand down a very long time in the past.
There’s additionally considerably of a backstory with Jennings, how her father was one among Boyce’s huge targets when Boyce was working the Flying Squad, however that didn’t have sufficient time to germinate within the first episode.
Intercourse and Pores and skin: None.
Parting Shot: As Kenny monologues to Micky over the telephone about how occasionally, working-class people like him turned kings, however didn’t maintain onto energy lengthy as a result of they couldn’t deal with it, Boyce and the detectives go to the storage locker the place the gold was saved and discover it empty. Kenny says into his telephone, “I can deal with it, Micky. I might be the king.”
Sleeper Star: Stefanie Martini performs John Palmer’s spouse Marnie, and he or she appears to have some affect over him, and should even be an enormous a part of his crucible operation.
Most Pilot-y Line: Between Kenny and John, there’s numerous lip-smacking, gum chewing and tongue clucking that turns into a distraction, particularly within the scene the place Kenny exhibits John the ingot he took from the nicked pile, to see what he can do with it.
Our Name: STREAM IT. Whereas there are numerous scene of simply folks speaking that don’t add a lot to the general story, The Gold nonetheless paints an fascinating image of a large unintended heist and its aftermath.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about meals, leisure, parenting and tech, however he doesn’t child himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared within the New York Occasions, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Quick Firm and elsewhere.
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