Crime Over London: A B-Movie Heist That Doesn't Quite Land

Is it worth your time?

Honestly, you only watch Crime Over London if you have a very specific itch for 1930s British studio sets and gangsters who sound like they studied American accents by listening to a faulty radio broadcast. It’s not great, but it’s short, and sometimes that’s all I need on a Tuesday night.

If you prefer movies with actual stakes or characters who feel like real humans instead of cardboard cutouts, you’re going to hate this. It’s stiff, it’s dry, and the heist logic is about as tight as a screen door on a submarine.

The Vibes

The whole thing feels like a stage play that someone accidentally filmed. You get a lot of guys in fedoras standing around in rooms that clearly have painted backdrops. The transition from New York to London is handled with all the grace of a brick, and once they hit the city, everyone acts like they’ve never seen a department store before.

There’s this one scene where they’re plotting the heist, and I swear the actors are just reading their lines off the wall behind the camera. It’s charming in a weird, low-budget way, but it definitely isn't cinema with a capital C.

Odd Little Details

• The American accents are genuinely distracting. It’s like watching a group of London stage actors trying to impersonate 1930s movie stars after only seeing one Cagney film.
• The department store heist is so polite. Nobody actually gets hurt, and the guards seem more annoyed than terrified.
• The pacing is frantic, then dead still, then frantic again. It’s like the editor was falling asleep at the wheel.

Comparing this to something like The Wax Model, you can really see how limited the imagination was here. There's none of that eerie atmosphere. It’s just people talking in rooms until they eventually walk into a building to steal stuff.

I found myself staring at the background extras more than the main cast. There's one guy in the back of the store scene who is just wiping the same counter for three minutes straight. He's the most dedicated performer in the room, honestly.

Is it a classic? No. Does it have a certain dusty, black-and-white appeal? Maybe. But if you’re looking for a thrill, you’re better off looking at literally anything else. It's just... fine. Which might be the worst thing a movie can be.