Culprits is the latest heist thriller to land on a streaming service. This one is from J Blakeson, who previously dabbled with high-octane amorality in the hugely enjoyable 2020 film I Care a Lot. It is the sort of TV that will inevitably be called “slick”: it is highly stylised and whips along at a pace; it looks great and the cast is fantastic. In all its glossy richness, though, it also manages to sneak in a few intriguing horror-adjacent ideas that offer greater depth than you might expect.
It divides its attentions between three timelines, BEFORE (the heist), THEN (during the heist) and NOW, each stamped on the screen in yellow capital letters every time it jumps from era to era. In the before times, a gang of elite criminal masterminds has been assembled by Gemma Arterton’s uber-villain, Dianne Harewood, who needs them to work together to crack a seemingly impenetrable vault and steal £30m. They will be paid handsomely for their parts in the job, but they will also have to disappear into the ether, leaving their old lives behind once it is done.
