A thoughtfully planned ripoff of London's largest and most secure holding bank of the safety deposit boxes, a quite improbable venture, is basis for an action movie in this nicely finished film that successfully and consistently features valuable understatement in its script. American architect Stephen Booker (Martin Sheen), working and residing in England and married to an English woman (Susannah York), is facing a depressing future after an important contract for which he and his partner have bid is awarded to a competing consulting company, leaving Booker's firm essentially fund less and paving the way for a non standardized adventure film. The newly unemployed architect's efforts to find a new position are unsuccessful, as he is repeatedly reminded by those with oversight of the jobs for which he is applying that he is "overqualified", until he is of a suddenly hired by one Mike Daniels (Albert Finney) to design a conversion of an entire city block, an assignment that will serve to elide Stephen's rampant personal debts to his banker, played very well by Robert Morley. However, after Stephen has discovered that Daniels, his new boss, is an apparent mountebank, he resigns from his new position, thereby being forced to encounter his wife's displeasure, in addition to that of his banker, so that when Daniels, a proficient safe cracker, urges Booker to rejoin him as part of a carefully selected crew of criminal specialists organized for this bank job, Stephen decides that becoming a temporary accomplice is less intolerable than becoming increasingly destitute. And so, into mid-town London's rat infested sewer tunnels goes the skilled team of burglars toward their targeted vault, but their carefully devised heist,is fraught with unforeseen complications, realistically presented here by cast and crew. Direction is excellent, focusing upon convincing detail supplied by a well-written screenplay that avoids turgid psychodrama in favor of the mechanics of a scheme that becomes of compelling interest to a viewer who will additionally find the characters of interest simply because their innermost thoughts are not voiced, and the intriguing possibilities suggested by the climax are stimulative. Finney handily earns the acting laurels, dominating his scenes with an engaging performance as an actuating criminal specialist, and there is fine playing by all members of the talented cast, with markedly solid turns from Colin Blakely and Alfred Lynch as two of Daniels' henchmen. The superb editing of Ralph Sheldon serves to intensify this well-crafted affair, Maurice Cain for always appropriate designing, and Ian Wingrove for the special visual effects, in particular when the sewer exit route to be used by the thieves is flooded following an unfocused downpour.
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