I'm surprised we don't see more comments on this film, which is really pretty good as a period piece.<br /><br />The plot is that the British Empire is paying its soldiers in the Crimea in Gold bullion, and has to move a quantity of it from London to the coast. An enterprising gang of criminals, lead by Connery, form a scheme to steal it.<br /><br />What follows is the drama of any heist film where they criminals concoct elaborate schemes, only to have those schemes foiled by random chance, and having to improvise to carry them through to fruition. Your sympathy is with them, you want them to succeed, probably for no other reason than you feel no common ground with the folks trying to stop them. The gold was being used to pay for a pointless war.<br /><br />Connery was pretty good here, trying to move beyond his James Bond persona, yet not quite escaping it. Donald Sutherland was a bit over the top, but still quite enjoyable to watch.<br /><br />The film drags in places, but that's probably just a modern bias against 70's films, which didn't fill every space with CGI carnage.