'Culprits' Review: A Heistorama Drama That Sticks To The Plan

Why do we like to steal blood?

Most of us are unlikely to get to run one of our own (you're probably reading this from jail), so we live vicariously through a group of nicknamed losers, held together by unique skills and legendary backstories. We need oilers, drivers and explosives experts to distract us from our nine-to-five jobs. We need bait-and-switch, security hack scenes, and funk-infused montages. After all, we love an anti-hero who outdoes the one percent in style .

What we don't always get, except in sequels like Ocean's 12 , are the consequences of the thief. Will they really get out? How to hide and spend so much gold without escaping anywhere without extradition? The Hulu/Disney+ series "Criminals" picks up after a heist ends and the gang breaks up, but instead of reuniting, they're on the run from a killer who has no real loyalty to each other but wants to know who he is. to survive long enough enough

While these things don't reinvent the wheel, the series has a talented cast, massive action sequences, and enough scary moments to keep you on your toes.

And what about criminals ?

The expansion of the heist into an entire series is completely unprecedented: see Money Heist , Lupine , Kaleidoscope . etc. but it is difficult to keep the power on.

Why The Heist isn't a movie, but an eight-episode TV series , The Heist: The Heist Was Just the Beginning is based on the sequel, an anthology of crime stories that followed a heist. It was made for the screen by "Cancellation" producer Stephen Garrett and adapted by "I Care"'s Jay Blakeson, who co-directed the series with Claire Oakley.

The criminals gather a team of robbery specialists who unwittingly follow their lives and robberies. Years after an important London mission goes awry, a masked killer is after them. It's basically like Ocean's 12 , when Terry Benedict tracked down dozens of crew members and demanded their money back. But it's eight hours instead of two, which has its pros and cons: you'll probably delve deeper into each character and make for a longer, more realistic game, but the heist genre benefits from brevity to keep the tension high.

Starring Candyman , Genara+Ion and Misfits , the series is led by Nathan Stewart-Jarrett as David Markings, a wonderful family man and restaurateur living a quiet life in Washington State with his partner Jules (Kevin Vidal) and adorable children. But David's thieving past threatens to expose his urban happiness and his new identity as Joe Petrosa. Before the killer can reach America, David must track down his former teammates in the UK and find out who he's targeting.

Criminals are very committed to this type of theft.

While Outlaws may seem derivative of heist movies and TV shows, the series faithfully follows the formula with a few tweaks, most notably starting after the heist and shifting the timeline. At its core, the heist is the classic "last act," the final heist that the gang of losers will last a lifetime. Of course, plans will be interrupted. Naturally, the leader has an ace up his sleeve. Of course, the explosions would have been stronger than expected if the bloody door had exploded.

As for The Heist, the series relies on a talented cast who give their own interpretations to a plot-packed script: think secret meetings in galleries, high-speed chases and cryptic messages in secret departments. The crew are assigned titles cut from classic cape cloth: "Tweaker", "Right Hand", "Muscle", "Driver", "Fusener", "Griezman", "Expert", "Private", "Officer". ("It feels like you're in a movie, doesn't it?" replies the driver.) And all played by Bren, Diane Harewood, Cold M (and best dressed in the entire cast) Gemma. . Arterton.

When you see Arterton's endless "stick to the plan" monologue throughout the synopsis of the series' main plot, it feels very familiar to the genre - and it removes the element of planning the heist with everything that's already been done. But while this reduction in the number of characters in their descriptors is supposed to make it easier to remember who did what, it somewhat limits character development and camaraderie. While team activation is essential for heists, it's even more important if you're going to start killing them.

The cast, led by Stewart Garrett and Arterton (with the exception of Ocean's 8 , which includes more women than most heist stories), is strong enough to find its own place, and The Good Place star Kirby stands out as a criminal officer . Niamh Elgar as the psychotic specialist, Tara Aboud as the surest Hazard and Susie Eddy-Izzard the public treasurer almost stole the series in an unexpected role.

But unlike a Guy Ritchie or Steven Soderbergh actor, they lack a joke to define their bond and give the audience a moment of comic relief amid the chaos - depending on where we are in the timeline, they're seeing each other. years or Invisibles, they often chase their own tails rather than carefully crafted deception, and while they have moments of genuine connection, they are very fleeting.

The masked killer himself, known as Satan, the main villain of the series, rarely inspires fear or style, strutting through every scene like Jason Voorhees in tracksuits and unleashing an overt, melodramatic violence the BBC would probably find. Murder of the week Seriously, the hacking team couldn't handle this guy?

Like Money Robbery , the series takes itself very seriously and tries to bring the action closer to reality than the Mission Impossible films. This gritty realism means we lose all the silliness that a good heist story can have: the gags, the pranks, the moments of fake bravado. But in truth, there is not enough time for that, jumping forever.

Criminals jump through time and beat you up

A set of moving parts, the series not only stops in the present, but also jumps before, during and after the heist. A similar advance was made in the Netflix series Kaleidoscope , which advocates structural change by encouraging viewers to watch additional episodes. But here everything depends on the director, serious work is required from the audience.

However, one of the most enjoyable parts of a time-jump series is the lack of heist stakes. The true nature of the goal is kept under wraps for most of the season, leaving it up to the emotional investment of the team's brains and finances at the end of the day. With no fees, it's a huge purse for any crew with few connections. But without complete information about the work, we have nothing to go on, and it's hard not to know the truth of the eight episodes.

Because of the time jump, it's hard to recognize the group other than David, since most of the show takes place after the crime. But with David, it's really interesting to see how he realistically leads his life after the robbery: where his creative hideouts are, where his secret SIM card is, and how he keeps MacGyver's house safe. Stewart Jarrett creates his own reality to deal with in his poignant scenes with Vidal, and the two make every scene worth it.

If you're looking for a heist series that follows the formula of time jumps, action sequences and an engaging cast, then The Guilty is the one to watch. Anyway, it will give you a better idea…

How to watch: Outlaws is available on Disney+ in the UK from 8 November and Hulu in the US from 8 December.