We must acknowledge that complex heist films are utterly preposterous, involving improbable insider knowledge, unlikely coincidence and impossible split-second timing.
That doesn’t make them any less fun.
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| Having already navigated an impressive series of obstacles, our heroes — from left, Thom (Freddie Highmore), James (Sam Riley) and Lorraine (Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey) — are stunned by what comes next. |
The caper also involves a twist I’ve not previously encountered: an objective so mysterious — the eponymous vault — that our protagonists have no idea what they don’t know about it … and yet must crack it.
But that’s getting ahead of things.
The setting is roughly a decade ago. Professional marine salvage expert Walter Moreland (Liam Cunningham) and his longtime partner James (Sam Riley) have just concluded a decades-long hunt for the remains of a 17th century ship, half-buried on the ocean floor off the coast of Spain. Moreland knows that the booty includes a set of coins used by the ship’s captain, Sir Francis Drake, to reveal where he buried vast treasures that he plundered during his career as a privateer.
Treasures that the British government wishes to retrieve, since Drake had a tendency to cheat his Elizabethan sponsors (so this story would have us believe). Ergo, Moreland has been getting clandestine assistance from a shadowy MI6 operative (Famke Janssen).
Alas, before Moreland can search the many recovered chests for the coins, his operation is intercepted by the Spanish Coast Guard. Since he lacks a legal salvage claim, the Spanish government seizes everything and locks it in an impregnable vault, somewhere within Madrid’s historic Bank of Spain. The nature of this vault, reputed to be the world’s most secure, has remained a carefully guarded secret for 70 years.
Elsewhere, 22-year-old Cambridge University engineering student Thom (Freddie Highmore) has just become a media sensation, courted by all manner of tech corporations, thanks to the ingenious manner in which he averted what could have become a major environmental crisis. Thom is a think-outside-the-box improviser with little interest in corporate fealty; he’s more intrigued by solving “impossible tasks” for their own sake.
Which makes him ideal for Moreland’s purposes.
