In the beginning there were four keys. And the keys were used to lock two giant safes. There was gold locked in the two safes, and it was good. And the giant safes were aboard a British train. The train was destined for Eastern Europe to fund the British forces fighting the Crimean War. Edward Pierce stated the gold was worth £25,000 and aroused the criminal element. But there had never been a robbery from a moving train before. And Edward Pierce said "All anyone ever thinks about is money." And it was good.<br /><br />Sean Connery plays Edward Pierce, a comely yet conniving thief of thieves, who decides for his next project to lift the Crimean Gold from a train bound for Eastern Europe. The character Edward Pierce is loosely based on real-life thief William Pierce who enacted one of the greatest train heists in the 1850's. The very opening of the movie is Connery's voice-over explaining the gold, the safes, and the whereabouts of the four keys. Immediately, we understand that his initial goal is to acquire the keys to steal the gold.<br /><br />He solicits the help of fellow pick-pocket and lock-smith ("the best screws-man in England) Edward Agar (also a real-life figure involved in the 1855 heist) played by Donald Sutherland, and the beautiful Leslie-Anne Down as Miriam. The first half of the film is Connery and Sutherland investigating the location of each key, its owner, and a possible weakness in the keys' owner. Their first target is Mr Edgar Trent, head of the bank entrusted with the dispatch of the gold. Connery discovers Trent's routine to discover a weakness. We see an imagined scene in which Trent rejects the solicitations of a young woman to which Connery remarks in voice-over: "No respectable man is that respectable!" This is how the first segment of the film is organized, through the investigation and acquisition of each key which is duplicated care of Sutherland. The last act is the actual heist. <br /><br />Blessed are they that experience this pure entertainment from beginning to end. Of course the bad guys are all colorful characters with not only shrewdness but wit to match, while the upright members of society who hold the keys to the gold are painted as bland and stodgy bores. Every scene is replete with humor and sarcasm, and Sutherland and Connery make an unlikely pair of complementary underworlds. And this heist must shortly come to pass. Amen.