Buster (1988)

Well at least Phil Collins got a few hits from this, but otherwise it's a really lacklustre and meandering telling of a story that rocked Britain in 1963. He (the eponymous Edwards) and his pals come up with a dastardly scheme to stop Her Majesty's Royal Mail train just after a bank holiday and relieve it of some £2.5 millions in cash. He's not really a nasty man, just a petty larcenist who tries to support his collusive wife (Julie Walters) and his daughter. With another child on the way, though, he needs to up his game and so devises this plan which goes off remarkably smoothly. As ever with heist films though, it's never the robbery that causes the problems - it's the aftermath. That's where the wheels start to come off as the gang are slowly apprehended - all but "Buster" who has managed to stay one step ahead of his pursuers. How long can they stay living in the shadows for? He is coping well enough, but she clamours for an ordinary existence for her and her daughter and reconciling this with their likely future puts enormous strain on the marriage. Something will have to give! Perhaps had this been made in monochrome and used a better ensemble cast, it might have managed to capture more of the audaciousness of their crime. As it is, though, it combines a motley collection of B-list television actors and gives them some overly verbose dialogue to deliver as this starts off quite intriguingly but ends up soapy, stodgy and dull. Even the usually lively Walters can't really inject much into this plodding affair that's left all to often to Colins - and he's just not much good.