Mark my words, there will be a film. Another ‘Buster’ or ‘Italian Job’ or ‘Great Train Robbery’. Because they pulled it off and nobody was killed. Just some ‘crafty geezers’ who for a heart-stopping few weeks got off with a well-executed plan to relieve several diamond merchants of their livelihood and some wealthy hoarders of their booty, in a consummately executed textbook heist.
I’m talking of course about ‘The Great Hatton Garden Robbery’ or ‘Dad’s Army’s Diamonds’ as the film may come to be titled. Seems we love audacity, especially when no one gets hurt and since the Global Financial Crisis particularly, when it involves the rich, the wealthy or those who feed off their manifestations of it.
The Daily Mail quickly established the cast, with their copycat ‘Pulp Fiction’ names – Mr Ginger, Mr Strong, ‘The Gent’. It all read like a classic Ealing Comedy even before the denouement played out. An anti-establishment romp that put up two-fingers to ‘the system’ and had wheelie bins in place of Mini Coopers. No doubt the script writers were quick to get busy on the opening scenes and the agents hurriedly attempting first mover advantage, touting their costliest and best for the major roles.
Yes it all became rather too rapidly a bit of an Easter Bunny jape, observed by the public with a gasp of awe and not-so-secret admiration. But what was truly going on here? For this was no neo-Robin Hood do-gooding, even though it was being labelled a ‘noble robbery’ because of its seemingly professional, well researched, clean and immaculate execution.
It seems we live in a topsy turvy world where we can be entertained by a familiar robbery plot with no real regard for the dishonesty that’s been perpetrated. It seems we love the scandal behind the story more than we clock the immorality. And it seems we have no conscience, no contempt, unless we’re victims of the crime itself.
So now that the trial is about to start, it’s a suitable point to check in on our collective moral code. For here were innocent victims – who happened to be wealthy or were trying to make a living through the wealthy – and lest we forget, ‘It could’ve been you’. Remember Northern Rock, Lehman’s and the collapse of the Icelandic banks? So at what point did we make robbery ‘noble’? Dick Turpin syndrome appears to be alive and well and this perspective on taking from the rich to fuel the aspirant rich has been embedded down the centuries. It doesn’t make it right though.
Stealing is always dishonest, dishonourable, underhand and manipulative; measured, ugly and totally unacceptable. When glammed up by lights, camera and action and cocooned in a beguiling soundtrack, our minds can too readily get influenced into believing the robbers are the good guys, the nice guys, the heroes. But they’re not. The self-full, individualistic motivation of the perpetrators has wiped out many uninsured merchants and destroyed livelihoods into the bargain. And that’s just not on.
For if we change the players, the location, the £amounts, do we seriously find we’re as accommodating of the morality when pensioners and the vulnerable are specifically targeted and groomed for door-to-door sales scams, charity phone scams, or credit card identity theft? I doubt it.
Is there perhaps something about this heist then, that taps into our collective jealousy, comparison and envy and in so doing makes ‘noble robbery’ alright because it actually makes us feel better when someone else is financially reduced to naught? Are we not choosing to hold a level of respect for and admiration of the criminals because we’re somehow feeling the inequality of things in life and they have cocked a snook on our behalf?
Yes, the volumes of money involved speak to something being wholly wrong with the imbalance of wealth in our world, but it is not right, true or acceptable for the have-nots to steal off those who have, no matter how sophisticated and technical, admirable and intricate their game.
So it’s time we faced facts – our moral compass has slipped. But our culture is full of films of similar historical and fictional escapades. Indeed some of our iconic cinema moments and one-liners come from such films. With this level of cultural backcloth, is it any wonder that our barometer is somewhat skewed towards Schadenfreude when it comes to assessing the truth of what happened in that safe deposit vault?
Is it truly okay to go about stealing from the rich, not to fill the coffers of the poor but those of an exclusive aspiring few, motivated perhaps by jealousy, lack of self-worth, a need for recognition or identification, a ‘somebody’ status for their current nobody? And is it acceptable if their coveting finally drives them to commit a societally dysfunctional behaviour which we class as an illegal and criminal appropriation of someone else’s possessions?
As the story continues to unfold during the trial, let’s see if the mood changes. There may well be no real-life happy endings. There’ll certainly be ongoing investigations, and reprimands to parallel the continued human factor hard-luck stories. And the film script may yet get consigned to the scrapheap. But whatever the outcome, let’s not allow iconic status to set in on this ‘caper’, or robbery may well become the new have-not DIY hobby of the bank holiday weekend.
