At so many points in “All the Devils Are Here,” you might think something interesting may occur. That all of the waiting around and dialogue might lead to anything. You would be wrong for the most part. Maybe that’s the point of the movie, but it just doesn’t work for me.
“All the Devils Are Here,” directed by Barnaby Roper, stars Eddie Marsan as Ronnie, Sam Claflin as Grady, Burn Gorman as Numbers, and Tienne Simon as Royce. To a lot of you, those names might be recognizable once you look them up and see their faces. It’s surprising, then, that this talent was wasted on such a “nothing burger” of a plot.
The opening starts with Ronnie, our main character, reflecting on his life before being told he is going to rob a bank. He commits the robbery with Grady, a violent man who ends up killing a guard. They escape after bagging the money with Royce, the getaway driver. Eventually they get on the road and Royce, who is distracted, runs over someone, but the men continue on anyway. The next morning, they meet up with Numbers, who takes the money. The four men then go to a safe house in the country until the boss tells them to leave.
From there until the last 20 minutes of the movie, the characters argue with each other as the days pass by, getting more frustrated as things go on. Does this sound familiar? It’s a very generic plot line that many of us have seen before in other movies. That’s fine, it works, but “All the Devils Are Here” follows the same general plot beats and has nothing new to say. I won’t spoil the ending, but while it’s not fully predictable, it is fairly easy to see coming.
The characters themselves are nothing special. Ronnie is a character you can easily sympathize with due to his want to retire from his criminal life, which he discusses in the opening. Grady, on the other hand, sucks, and is all around a terrible human being. Royce is also there as the young getaway driver, but he isn’t explored as much. Numbers is fairly mysterious but not that interesting.
The main theme of the film seems to be guilt: Ronnie’s guilt over the life he has lived and Royce’s over running over someone and not even stopping. In contrast, Grady seems to have no guilt at all for what he has done, and Numbers has nothing to be guilty for.
However, the atmosphere is the one thing this film did well. The countryside houses the characters stay in are old and falling apart, almost reflecting the status of the group as they slowly begin to bicker and fight. The music also pairs nicely with the film which made it more watchable.
“All the Devils Are Here” is not worth watching, even if it is only 90 minutes long. If you want to watch a good heist movie that is also scary, watch “The Vault,” which was released in 2017. Overall, I would give the movie about a 4.1/10.