In Newcastle, the year is 1961 and Kempton Bunton (national treasure Jim Broadbent) is on trial for the theft of The Portrait of the Duke of Wellington by Francisco De Goya. We flashback to Bunton's life leading up to the theft: his hard working and long suffering wife Dorothy (Helen Bloody Mirren, excellent), his long-standing socialist crusades against injustice and the establishment, his sons Jackie and Kenny (Fionn Whitehead and Jack Bandeira), and his frustrations at the world around him.
This was a perfectly pleasant, sweet, but not-too-saccharine, little kitchen sink drama with well observed and lovely performances from Broadbent and Mirren. I could happily just have the two of them noodling and pottling about their home trading barbs with each other.
Whilst the heist itself is not particularly thrilling, it is not attempting to be: it's attempting to be an amiable little film about a nice man and his struggle.
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