The Heist

All in the name of improving security, Channel 4 brought together a group of former criminals – a boss, a cat burglar, a hacker, a con man, a smash & grab man and an art thief. Over three episodes they were set three simple tasks to plan a job and steal an item selected by the producers – namely the painting "The View From The Bandstand", a prototype TVR and a racehorse. The owners are made aware of the job but are not allowed to change anything from the norm or know when it will happen or how, while the gang weigh up the options and look for weak spots in the security.

Channel 4 wouldn't be channel 4 if they weren't coming up with yet another reality-based show which grabs headlines, and indeed that is what they have done here with a series that cries out to be hand-wrung over. The idea of glamorising crime, teaching tricks of the trade etc have all been picked over by the press and forgotten by now, so I won't stoop to their level here. For me the concept was interesting enough to give it a go but it never really got as fascinating as it hinted that it could have done. The first episode was a pretty big turn off because the "planning" was pretty dully handled and lacked imagination – I won't spoil it but the actual job itself is no cleverer than what any Burberry-wearing scally would do to your house on a Saturday night. The other jobs are a bit more involved and more interesting but it still isn't as fascinating as it sounded.

Part of the reason for this is the fact that channel 4 seem very aware that they don't actually want to promote crime so we have "moral lessons" scattered through the series. These moral lessons are basically a bit of background into the gang to show us that they are all pretty miserable guys who have been locked up and are not the cheerful chappy chancers that we spend the rest of the episodes being told they are. The series still just manages to be interesting enough to be worth seeing but this aspect of it makes it a bit clunky and not as fun as it really should have been.

Overall, yet another reality television show that has an interesting central concept but doesn't manage to really deliver on the initial interest it held out. It does as well as it could have done and is worth seeing – if it had dropped the moral stuff it would have been mercilessly attacked but by keeping it the end product is weighed down and isn't as fun as it could have been. If it interests you, see it if you can because after the headlines and the hand wringing, I can't imagine it'll get many more episodes.