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What the Movie Got Right:

Not surprisingly, the actual robbery is where the movie is the most faithful to the story. One of the ex-gang members actually gave an interview to the British newspaper The Mirror and his account was very similar to the movie’s portrayal. The gang leased a leather accessories shop two spots away from the bank, and they dug a tunnel under a fast-food restaurant to reach the underground bank vault. They tunneled for 40 feet and into the vault of Lloyds Bank on Baker Street, central London. Afterwards, they cut through the reinforced concrete floor with a thermal lance.

The team set up a lookout at a nearby rooftop with whom they communicated with via walkie-talkies. To avoid suspicion, they did the work at night. Unfortunately, no matter how well you plan something, sometimes shit just happens. That was the case for them.

There just happened to be an amateur ham radio operator nearby who stumbled upon their transmissions. His name was Robert Rowlands and he overheard conversations between the robbers and their rooftop lookout at about 11 p.m. and he called the police. At first, the police thought the call was a hoax, but they instructed him to record the conversations while the robbery was in progress. Because the robbers never mentioned the bank by name, the police were unable to identify which bank was being robbed.

At 2 a.m., a senior police officer alerted radio detector vans to track down the gang. Police checked the 750 banks within 10 miles of Mr. Rowlands' receiver, including the Baker Street bank. The police actually did go into the Lloyds Bank while the robbers were there, but because the security door was still locked, the gang was not caught. The thieves made their escape from the bank on Sunday.

It should also be noted that a lot of the dialogue between the robbers is verbatim. Rowlands' recordings were used as reference for the movie.

What the Movie Got Wrong:

Although in the movie it seems that the job was all done relatively quickly, in reality the robbers spent months on the job. The actual tunneling was done over a period of three weekends.

The movie follows a very popular theory that the robbers found some unflattering pictures of a member of the royal family in the vault. It was believed that those pictures belonged to a man named Michael X, who was later hanged for the murder of Gale Ann Benson. The movie portrays Benson as a spy, but this was not true.

At the conclusion of the film, the robbers all get away but the fact is that although they make it out of the bank, four people were eventually arrested for the crime. It is interesting though that their names and sentences were never released to the media.

What Remains a Mystery:

One of the biggest plot points of the movie is the fact that the robbers found incriminating pictures of several royal family members. Although this was a very popular theory, many have dismissed it as an urban myth. Unfortunately, there are also people who believe this was true. As the theory goes, Michael X - a black revolutionary - stored these pictures in one of the bank’s safe boxes. He was using them as “get out of jail free” card.

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