TV review: This Is A Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist, Netflix (2021)

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston was poorly protected and badly staffed in 1990 when robbers dressed as cops tricked their way inside, trussed up the guards, and over a period of 81 minutes stole works of art valued at over $200 million. The thieves cut the paintings out of their frames, damaging them irrevocably. It’s a heart-breaking scenario and it really happened.

This is why I love Netflix. What fictional crime drama can compete with the emotions that this show promises to invoke? If killing is a symbol of separation and love for unity, then ‘This Is A Robbery’ is a celebration of separation and loss because there is no neatly tied-up finale.

They never found the works.

The people the police and the FBI fingered for the heist are or were all petty criminals, not dashing thieves with high-tech gadgetry. Sure the playbook the thieves wrote for the robbery was inventive but the aftermath didn’t involve a car screeching off into the darkness with the cops hot on their heels. It involved a museum guard with duct tape wrapped around his head, abandoned gilt frames scattered around the exhibition room, and a guard’s office in disarray.

It involved merely destruction.

The habits and character of the people involved in the robbery warrant further inspection so if they ever find the art I hope they make a new series. Rembrandt is such a gigantic name in the art world and when a painting by the master goes missing you stand up and take notice. I took notice and I lament the loss and possible damage to his painting of a boat on the Sea of Galilee. Christ knows there are a lot of Old Masters in America but every one of them is worth preservation. This is why owning a painting such as this is a responsibility as well as a benefit. If you own a Picasso or a Matisse you have to look after it so that everyone can have the benefit of seeing it in real life.