
There are caper comedies and there are heist pictures, and this is the latter. Thom joking that he’s no “Danny Ocean” is the closest “The Vault” gets to that light tone. It’s not funny, not romantic or sexy and not particularly colorful. I kept groping around for something about this story to latch onto, and finding nothing. What follows is a wildly improbable, generally dull attempted heist with pre-robbery robberies, ziplines and water hazards and a fanatical Spanish security chief ( Jose Coronado) trying to keep his vast “team” engaged in defending the vault in the middle of Spain’s march to victory in the 2010 World Cup, which has the country transfixed. He can get “whatever you need” - 3D printers have just been invented, “thermal lances, a fire suit and 500 liters of nitrogen” come later. Next thing we know, we’re in Madrid to meet the German IT whiz ( Axel Stein) and the Spanish procurer (Spanish star Luis Tosar of “Eye for an Eye” and “Retribution”). And we aren’t treating skilled, alluring and amoral young female accomplices as “bait” in such pictures any more.īut the trouble is, there’s too little here that’s supposed to lure this earnest, privileged and dull young engineer into crossing the line and risking prison or worse - just the “problem” of this “impossible” low-tech vault. Walter makes nothing of that, no “Get back what’s mine” (because it isn’t) outrage, no “England expects every man to do his bank-robbing duty” rubbish. So this bank job is to recover something they’ve already risked big cash and lives to get their hands on. Lawyer Margaret ( Famke Janssen) was no help at all. We’ve been treated to a not-quite-suspenseful prologue where Walter (Cunningham) and his ace diver ( Sam Riley) recover treasure that they then legally lose custody of. This strikes me as where “The Vault” starts to go wrong.

It’s in the Bank of Spain, in an ingenious, gigantic, overbuilt and “impossible” vault. But young Thom Laybrick (again, FIVE screenwriters) is more intrigued by the veteran deep sea “salvager” (Liam Cunningham) and his pitch. The blonde pickpocket who changes hair colors, accents and names? She ( Astrid Bergès-Frisbey) might have been called “the bait” in a less woke era. He’s fending off suitors from his father’s world when a mysterious text arrives. It took five credited screenwriters to come up with this humorless, tepid “Italian Job” knockoff?įreddie Highmore plays an oil baron’s son just finishing up engineering school. There’s no Michael Caine, no jokes and not a Mini Cooper in sight. They’re trying to recover something associated with privateer/warrior/explorer Sir Francis Drake.

The criminal masterminds are British and there’s a hint of jingoism in their quest. As history goes, Drake, a famous naval explorer working for the English monarchy, came upon a hefty bounty.Deep sea treasure hunters become Bank of Spain robbers in “The Vault,” a heist picture built on “The Italian Job” model, only without the laughs. Together, these three coins give the coordinates of Drake’s treasure trove. Three pieces, to be exact, are the three coins that lie in the chest that Walter finds at the beginning of the story. It seems that everyone wants a piece of Sir Francis Drake’s treasure. Where is the Treasure of Sir Francis Drake? Despite Gustavo’s formidable security presence, the team rushes to retrieve the coins. Floors freeze, but they don’t stay frozen forever. Initially, liquid nitrogen does not seem to work, but it soon starts working. In a method devised by Thom, Lorraine, James, and Thom break into the Vault.


How Do Lorraine and Thom Escape the Vault? What mechanism detects a breach? Thom also solves this puzzle. Once trapped below, the perpetrators are unable to escape. He is released from the water tank above the Vault when breached. Despite its simplicity, the fail-safe works well. Thomas deduces that the blurred area represents a water tank.
