Trama

Martine offers Terry a lead on a foolproof bank hit on London's Baker Street. She targets a roomful of safe deposit boxes worth millions in cash and jewelry along with a treasure trove of dirty secrets.

Business is slow for Terry Leather, a London car dealer, married with children. He's an artful dodger, so Martine, a former model with a thing for him, brings him her scheme: a bank's alarm is off for a couple weeks, so let's tunnel into the vault. He assembles a team, not realizing her real goal is a safe-deposit box with compromising photos of a royal: she needs the photos to trade for avoiding a jail sentence - and MI-5, or is it MI-6, is pulling the strings two steps removed. A Trinidadian thug, a high-end bordello owner, and a pornographer also have things stored in the vault, so the break-in threatens many a powerful personage. Is there any way these amateurs can pull it off?—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

In 1971, criminal Michael X blackmails the British government with compromising photos of members of parliament practicing kinky sex with prostitutes. He keeps the photos in a safe deposit box in the Lloyds Bank at Baker Street. The ambitious MI-5 Federal Agent Tim Everett plots a bold plan to retrieve the pictures in a heist of the bank. Following her arrest at Heathrow airport for trafficking drugs, he offers former model Martine Love security information to help her facilitate to robbing of the bank. Martine goes to East London and meets her former lover, car dealer Terry Leather, who is married with two daughters but owes money to a dangerous loan shark, and tells him that the bank's alarm will be deactivated during a few days. Terry summons his friends and the team of amateurs succeeds in the heist. However, together with the money, the gang also steals the photos of Michael X; the book with the transactions with dirty cops of Scotland Yard and the pornographer Lew Vogel; and photos of politicians in very compromising positions in the Sonia Bern's brothel. Now different groups organize a manhunt for Terry and his friends with different objectives.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Terry is a small-time car dealer trying to leave his shady past behind and start a family. Martine is a beautiful model from Terry's old neighbourhood who knows that Terry is no angel. When Martine proposes a foolproof plan to rob a bank, Terry recognises the danger but realises this may be the opportunity of a lifetime.

In September 1971, thieves tunneled into the vault of a bank in London's Baker Street and looted safe deposit boxes of cash and jewelry worth over three million pounds. None of it was recovered. Nobody was ever arrested. The robbery made headlines for a few days and then disappeared - the result of a 'D' Notice, gagging the press. This film reveals what was hidden for the first time. The story involves murder, corruption and a sex scandal with links to the Royal Family - a story in which the thieves were the most innocent people involved.—The Production

The British Security Services (MI5) in 1971, have taken interest in a safety deposit box that is located in a Lloyd's Bank branch on the corner of Baker Street and Marylebone Road. It belongs to a black militant gangster, Michael X (Peter De Jersey), and contains compromising photos of Princess Margaret, which he is keeping as insurance to keep the British authorities off his back. Michael X was driven out of England to Trinidad due to his illegal business activities including drugs and pimping. The MI5 cannot intervene directly as that would prompt Michael X to release the photos. But they do want the photos to disappear. Martine Love (Saffron Burrows), an ex-model who is romantically involved with MI5 agent Tim Everett (Richard Lintern), is caught at Heathrow Airport smuggling drugs into the country, and to avoid going to jail, she makes a deal with the authorities whereby she agrees to retrieve the photos.

Martine approaches her friend Terry Leather (Jason Statham), a struggling East London car salesman with criminal contacts, and tells him that if he can assemble the gang to help her rob the bank, he will be richly rewarded, though she does not tell him about the photos in the deposit box. Martine convinces Terry by saying that the alarms at the bank are being replaced as the trains were setting them off. For a week, they won't have any alarms.

Terry recruits a small team, including one of his own workers, Eddie (Michael Jibson), Dave (Daniel Mays), Kevin (Stephen Campbell Moore), Bambas (Alki David) (The tunnel digging expert), and Guy Singer (James Faulkner) (He is a fake "Major" and is used as a front for the lease of the shop next door to the bank). While scouting the bank, Dave runs into local gangster Lew Vogel (David Suchet), for whom he has made several pornographic films. Lew Vogel is an old business associate of Michael X. Lew handles Sonia Bern's (Sharon Maughan) brothels and pays off London coppers to look the other way. He keeps a ledger for all payments made to the cops which is kept in a locker at the bank. Meanwhile Sonia takes pics and videos of the high-profile customers at her establishment.

The gang rents a leather goods shop near the bank and tunnels into the vault. They loot the safety deposit boxes, but Terry becomes suspicious when Martine seems to display intense interest in one box and eventually discovers the photos. The police are alerted to the robbery by a ham radio operator who overhears the gang's Walkie-Talkie communications, but by the time they locate the bank, the gang has already got away.

The robbery rattles many important underworld figures who had used the bank, including Lew Vogel, who kept a ledger of police payoffs inside. He notifies a furious Michael X in Trinidad, who correctly suspects Gale Benson (Hattie Morahan)-the lover of his associate Hakim Jamal (Colin Salmon)-of spying for MI5, and subsequently murders her.

Terry confronts Martine who tells him the truth. Martine sets up a handover with Tim at a tube station, but only Terry goes to it the handover meeting. Terry uses the photos from Michael X's locker and Sonia's locker to secure passports and new identities for the gang. Vogel decides that Dave's presence outside that particular bank was not a coincidence and has him kidnapped and tortured for information by sand blasting the ankle and up on one of his legs. Dave gives in, and Lew has Gerald Pyke (Don Gallagher) and Nick Burton (Craig Fairbrass)-two corrupt policemen working on his payroll-kidnap Eddie at Terry's garage. Vogel has Terry call him and demands the ledger and the Royal Portfolio back.

Vogel's men track down and murder Bambas and Guy Singer. Eddie refuses to cooperate with Vogel, who has Gerald execute Dave (When Terry tries to negotiate, Vogel shoots Dave point blank) and threatens to kill Eddie unless Terry delivers the ledger to him; Terry agrees to meet up with Vogel at Paddington Station to exchange the ledger for Eddie. He arranges for the meeting to happen at the same time as he will be picking up the new passports and the immunity of prosecution of the robbery from the MI5 in exchange for the pictures of Princess Margaret.

Meanwhile, Terry sends Kevin to honest cop Roy Given (Gerard Horan) with a page torn from the ledger. Vogel becomes spooked when he sees MI5 agents tracking Terry at the Paddington station and tries to flee, but Terry attacks and beats him-only to be arrested by the police. However, Given has Terry released and uses the information he supplied to arrest Lew, Gerald and Nick. In Trinidad, Michael X is arrested as well and his house is burned down when Tim finds out that Michael X killed Gale Benson.

Eddie inherits Terry's car dealership, while Kevin and Martine prepare to begin new lives with their share of the money. Terry and his family leave England and enjoy a carefree life on a boat in a sunny location. It is later revealed Vogel's ledger eventually causes Scotland Yard to undergo a major corruption purge in the police force. The activities of Sonia Bern's brothels make several senior officials resign. Michael X is hanged in Trinidad in 1975 for the murder of Gale Benson and his file in the British National Archive remains classified until 2054. Lew Vogel is sentenced to 8 years in prison. Hakim Jamal is murdered in 1973. The murders of both Bambas and Guy Singer are never solved. The loot taken from the robbery exceeds that of the Great Train Robbery at 4 million pounds. Over 100 safe deposit holders refuse to identify their losses as most of them are criminals.