Heist (2008 film)


Heist is a one-off 2008 television comedy-drama, written by Peter Harness and directed by Justin Hardy. It was completed at the end of 2006 and first broadcast on 23 April 2008 on BBC Four as part of its Medieval season. Loosely based on real events surrounding Richard of Pudlicott, it is a parody of and/or homage to heist films, set in medieval England, using several of that genre's conventions, and trailed under the same tagline as the 2003 remake of The Italian Job. As per the medieval setting, the film dialogue contains several Middle English and pseudo-Middle English expressions and insults. Marshall as lead character narrates several parts of the backstory to the audience during the film.

Plot

In 1303, the innkeeper and would-be wool-merchant Dick Puddlecote is arrested and imprisoned in Flanders after travelling there from England to trade wool. Before he could receive the money, he was imprisoned, as punishment for the English monarch Edward I having defaulted on a loan from Flanders.
On his release, Dick returns to England, where he finds Edward has taken over his inn and forced his girlfriend Joanna the Concubine into prostitution. Dick vows revenge on the King for all this, and begins to gather his friends to attempt an audacious robbery on the king's treasury beneath Westminster Abbey.

Reception