Stream It Or Skip It: ‘This Is A Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist’ On Netflix, A Docuseries About A 1990 Art Theft That Is Still An Open Case

This Is A Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist is a 4-part docuseries, directed by Colin Barincle, about the March 18, 1990 robbery at the Gardner Museum, resulting in the loss of 13 pieces that at the time were worth around $200 million, and at one point were worth around $500 million. Some of the pieces were rare pieces by Rembrandt and Vermeer, plus other odds and ends like an ancient Chinese vase and an eagle finial on top of a flagpole holding a flag used by Napoleon. Read on for more.

THIS IS A ROBBERY: THE WORLD’S BIGGEST ART HEIST: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Night scenes of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. A voice says, “The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was an art thief’s delight.”

The Gist: The first episode talks about the unique museum, which Gardner built and opened in 1903. As the former guards who are interviewed state, it’s a museum that’s an architectural wonder; plain on the outside, its gaudily-decorated galleries which look like rooms in a Victorian-era mansion are situated around an enclosed atrium that feels like a lush garden. The works that Gardner collected were a bit eclectic but there was a theme: The more realistic paintings of the Baroque era of the 17th century.

As the accounts of the night mention, the museum was guarded by two guards on the night watch, and at one point, two men dressed as Boston police officers come to the door saying they had reports of a disturbance. They were let in, they handcuffed both guards, and said “This is a robbery.” Then, after duct taping the guards and sticking them in the basement, they spent an amazing 81 minutes roving the museum and cutting paintings out of frames. They seemed to know exactly the pieces they wanted, but somehow managed to take a Rembrandt self-portrait off the wall but didn’t take it.

One of the guards, Richard Abath, was found tied up in a very odd manner, especially around his head. The notion of an inside job starts from there, especially because he briefly opened and closed a side door at some point before the robbers entered, and various security systems failed. But another aspect that’s discussed is just who would want stolen art that is that high profile. Is it an organized crime syndicate? An unethical collector? Someone else?

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Although This Is A Robbery is a true crime docuseries, it has a different feel than the murder-related ones Netflix produces. It’s more akin to the streamer’s other heist-related docuseries, Evil Genius. Heist investigations can be even more complicated than murder investigations, as both series show.

Our Take: Barnicle takes his time in the first episode of This Is A Robbery, and sometimes that’s to the show’s detriment. For all the crime scene photos showing smashed glass and empty frames, with graphics showing the path the thieves took to get to the works they stole, the act itself wasn’t all that complicated. The thieves dressed like cops, they handcuffed the guards and they took a remarkably long amount of time to take the works they wanted to take.

What we’re trying to explain is that there’s no head of steam that Barnicle can build towards in the first episode, culminating in the robbery. So he goes over how Boston’s cops were concentrating on the drunken revelry of the St. Patrick’s Day parade, and how iconoclastic Gardner was. We get interviews with various guards, reporters and law enforcement, including the FBI agents who were in charge of the crime scene once they arrived.

But the more fascinating aspect of the case isn’t the robbery itself. Let’s face it; it wasn’t some complex Oceans’ 11 kind of caper. In a lot of ways, it was more of a smash-and-grab operation, with the foreknowledge of what the museum’s layout was and where each piece was located. What’s going to be more fascinating is the investigation into just who ordered this and what this person or people will do with important works like Rembrandt’s only seascape.

You have to realize that, while some of these works have been spotted here and there, they’re still missing 31 years after the robbery. Where have they gone? Are they rolled up in some warehouse somewhere? Have they been sold? Destroyed? It’s something we hope Barnicle will examine, along with the seemingly inadequate security measures in the unusual museum.

Parting Shot: We hear the voice of Richard Abath saying, “Well I was the guy who opened up the door. They’re obviously going to be looking at me.”

Sleeper Star: We felt bad when we saw Anne Hawley, the director hired six months prior to turn around the museum’s fortunes, get pelted by questions from reporters at the time, though she seemed to take it in stride in her current interview. But former security guard Helen Sangregory was the star of this first episode, mainly because of how trippy she was discussing the museum and the robbery.

Most Pilot-y Line: Not really sure what the point was of showing current and past clips of Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, at least to the extent that they were shown.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Despite the first episode’s draggy pace, the aftermath of the Gardner Museum robbery is what will keep us watching This Is A Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream This Is A Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist on Netflix