In the world of television crime dramas, the days of simple stocking masks are long gone. The new six-part series Steal introduces a far more disturbing and clever approach to criminal disguise, setting the stage for a gripping and intelligent thriller set in the heart of London's financial district.
A Disturbing New Approach to Criminal Disguise
When a gang of armed robbers storms a glass-sided skyscraper in London's iconic Square Mile, their faces are not concealed by conventional masks. Instead, they are deformed by elaborate prosthetics that create a truly unsettling visual. Some sport noses resembling lumps of clay and ears like giant cornflakes, while others display Neanderthal brows and prognathous chins. Collectively, they appear as though they have endured lengthy careers as Tyson Fury's preferred punchbag.
This ingenious tactic means that while a few bystanders might cast sidelong glances at their arrival, no witness will be able to provide a useful description to the police. The broken, distracting features of their faces serve as a perfect criminal camouflage, establishing Steal as a heist thriller with a smarter-than-average plot from the very beginning.
Sophie Turner's Remarkable Transformation
The most significant surprise of the entire series is undoubtedly Sophie Turner's performance. Gone is the blank-eyed young woman who portrayed the often vapid Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones. In her place stands an actress with a subtly expressive face, capable of rippling from embarrassment to fear to shock in a single, fluid sequence.
Turner plays Zara, a junior executive at a soulless London investment company that juggles pension funds. When we first encounter her, she is suffering from a nosebleed that she attributes to an epic hangover. Her initial task is to give a new intern named Myrtle, played by Eloise Thomas, a guided tour of the corporate environment.
This setup provides writer and creator Sotiris Nikias with a neat narrative device, offering viewers a glimpse into Zara's true feelings about life in the high-stakes world of finance. "Your job," she confides to Myrtle, "is not to die of boredom," as she reveals where the bosses keep their secret stash of biscuits, warning that being caught there would be a "sacking offence."
A Strong Supporting Cast and Rising Tension
Turner remains the focal point of the opening episode until the arrival of Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as DCI Rhys Covac, a detective with smouldering eyes and a troublesome gambling habit. The series gains further star power as it progresses, with Anastasia Hille appearing as Zara's sharp-tongued mother and Anna Maxwell Martin delivering a chilling performance as a menacing MI5 investigator.
The robbery itself unfolds with a threat of violence so palpable that it might genuinely cause viewers to break into a sweat. Office workers are abruptly jerked from their desks, ordered to surrender their phones, and herded into a glass-walled meeting room. The confusion and stifled terror feel viscerally real, capturing the raw panic of such a situation.
Any attempt at resistance is met with brutal punishment. When gunmen invade the boardroom, the executives gathered around their oval table react like frightened children—freezing in place and desperately avoiding eye contact, as if trying to evade a severe telling-off.
A Modern Heist with Classic Influences
As Zara and a colleague are coerced into transferring a staggering £4 billion in pension funds to a series of accounts, a pulsating 1980s-style synthesiser soundtrack drives the tension. This musical choice serves as a possible echo of the iconic score by Tangerine Dream for James Caan's classic heist film, Thief.
Of course, Caan never required prosthetics—his naturally craggy features were intimidating enough. Steal updates this tradition for a modern audience, combining clever disguises with a plot that climaxes in a delicious and well-concealed twist at the end of the first episode. The surprises continue to unfold throughout all six instalments, making for a thoroughly engaging viewing experience that redefines the heist genre for contemporary television.
