Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

This is one of the best crime capers that you'll ever see, and it is based on a real-life event about several resourceful robbers who looted a British Royal Mail train in August 1963. Peter Yates never lets the suspense and the tension to lapse in this crackling good thriller. Steve McQueen took one look at this vintage thriller and knew that he had to have Yates at the helm of his classic cop saga "Bullitt." You won't find a better real-life hold-up movie. Of course, the filmmakers have taken certain liberties despite the fact that a train was robbed. Stanley Baker plays Paul Clifton, the man who masterminded the complex robbery. Yates covers the meticulous planning that went into the actual robbery. You won't forget this timeless thriller.

A terrific thriller directed by Peter Yates. Career criminal Stanley Baker pulls together a band of thieves to rob the Royal Mail train. They're doggedly pursued by wily Inspector James Booth. A masterful heist film with great performances all around. Baker is nearly robotic in his pursuit to pull off the job. He's ably supported by cunning William Marlowe & Frank Finlay. With clever direction by Yates, including a car chase that has to be seen to be believed and a dynamite twist ending. Joanna Pettet appears briefly as Baker's exasperated wife. The cinematography is by Douglas Slocombe & the taut score is by the great Scottish songwriter Johnny Keating.

Although Robbery belongs to one of my favourite British film genres, i.e. that of the sordid, sleazy gangster movie, I can't really like it. Compared to pictures such as The Good Die Young (1954), Villain (1971), The Long Good Friday (1980), Get Carter! (1971) and The Frightened City (1961), it lacks any psychological interest, and has no characters in whom one can invest even the slightest sympathy.Another thing that doesn't help is that the leading man is the snake-eyed Stanley Baker, whose talents didn't include charm or likability. But perhaps the nastiest thing about Robbery is that it's based upon the so-called "Great" British Train Robbery of 1963, in which the train driver was very badly beaten up, which may well have contributed to his premature death a few years later. The film gives his fictional character no sympathy at all.Moral considerations apart, Robbery is also shot in the ugliest, flattest colour I've ever seen in a modern-era film, and it feels like the longest 110-minute film ever made. I give it 6/10 for historical interest only.

A very well made near-reconstruction of the Great Train Robbery, taut, brilliantly directed and acted, with excellent casting.Stanley Baker was on top form for this film-such a tragedy that he died so young-and so are the rest of the cast, which includes many 1960s British film stalwarts, such as Glynn Edwards and Barry Foster.It should be remembered that many of the details of the preparations by the "firms" who carried out the real GTR, only came out in later books, so the very realistic pre-the big robbery story lines in this film were, it turned out, not surprisingly, very accurate: the robbery to finance the big job, the pulling together of a team of top criminals etc.In all not one to be missed, whenever it is shown on TV.