Sophie Turner’s Prime Video Heist Thriller Miniseries Is an Imperfect but Addictive Binge-Watch

There’s nothing like a good heist movie. There’s also nothing like a good government conspiracy movie. There’s also nothing like a good thriller. When you put all those three together, you get Steal. Prime Video’s latest crime thriller follows a complicated heist that affects everyone, from the average man on the street to the highest people in government. Created by S.A. Nikias and starring Sophie Turner, the six-episode miniseries serves up twist after twist and stands as one of the strongest recent showcases of Turner’s range as an actor. While it’s not flawless, it’s the ideal binge-watch that will hook you and keep you guessing right until the end.

‘Steal’s Premise Is Simple, but the Story Is Complicated

Nikias makes his screenwriting debut with Steal, but if you think this is his first foray into storytelling, you’d be wrong. Publishing under the name Ray Celestin, Nikias has most notably written the award-winning City Blues Quartet series and is well-versed in the crime thriller genre. While his novels take place in history, Steal drops us right into modern-day Britain. The series kicks off with a literal bang as we watch a group of thieves wearing prosthetics take over a financial firm called Lochmill Capital with guns in hand, ready to rob them blind.

Lochmill Capital is one of the companies that directly manages people’s pensions, and the thieves have an eye on that money. They threaten Zara (Turner) and her co-worker/best friend Luke (Archie Madekwe) to execute a transfer of £4 million from Lochmill, and manage to get away before the police arrive, leaving Zara and her co-workers traumatized and left to deal with the fallout. When the police get involved, DCI Rhys Covac (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) and the other investigators immediately have their eye on Zara.

However, the truth and the motive behind the heist go far deeper than just a group of people looking for a quick payday. Because of her direct involvement, Zara gets dragged into the investigation as it spirals out of control, even bringing in the involvement of MI-5. While the premise of Steal is simple, the actual truth of what is going on is so convoluted that you’d need some red string and a white wall to connect it all. As Zara says with each revelation, “There’s another bloody layer,” and those layers don’t stop revealing themselves, even in the final moments.

Sophie Turner Is the One To Watch in ‘Steal’

Steal puts Turner at its center, and it’s a fantastic showcase that shows off her range as an actor. Zara is, to put it lightly, a mess. When we meet her in the beginning, she’s seen by many of her co-workers as someone who doesn’t have much ambition or goals. She goes through the motions at Lochmill Capital and then goes out on the weekends, gets wasted, and then crawls into work on Monday. Wash, rinse, repeat. However, Zara is also clever, observant, and quick on her feet, and her ability to adapt to the changing revelations in each episode, playing chess with multiple opponents, shows just how much her potential is wasted at Lochmill Capital. Turner plays Zara as a perfectly exhausted office worker who has been beaten down by days of endless spreadsheets and forced into a rat race she didn’t even want to participate in. But when push comes to shove, she shows her teeth. Although she is far from perfect, she doesn’t make the same mistake twice and demonstrates both bravery and intelligence when put between a rock and a hard place.

Primarily known for her roles as Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones and Jean Grey in the X-Men series, Steal allows the camera to focus in on Turner while she stretches her muscles as an actor. She’s a magnetic presence, and it’s easy to want to root for her as she uncovers secret after secret. With some thrillers, it can feel like sometimes the story dumbs down the protagonist to add a layer of forced suspense, but that’s never the case here. Zara is one step ahead, and rather than screaming at the screen for her to simply act, she’s normally the one with the ace up her sleeve.

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‘Steal’s Supporting Cast Weakens the Series

Sophie Turner and Archie Madekwe in StealImage via Prime Video

Besides Turner, however, the rest of the cast often feels a little lacking. Fortune-Lloyd’s Rhys is your typical dogged detective, unwilling to leave any stones unturned when it comes to understanding the robbery and all its players. But he’s saddled with a subplot about his own mounting debt from gambling that never really sees a strong conclusion or any development. Though he has good chemistry with Turner, their burgeoning romance isn’t given enough time to feel significant. Compared to the story and Zara’s own life, Rhys is one of the least interesting characters on the screen and needs more meat for his character to match up to Zara.

On the other hand, Madekwe falls flat onscreen. Not only is Luke a deeply annoying character, but there’s little redeeming about him. This makes it hard for the audience to like him, much less care about his well-being. Madekwe’s performance lacks charm, and it’s hard to imagine why Zara is friends with him beyond the convenience of his working at the computer next to her. Despite being involved in one of the biggest twists in the series, the character unfortunately feels incomplete, leaving a narrative hole when it comes to his relationship with Zara by the end.

While Turner is an exciting protagonist, the rest of the characters can’t really measure up. Though the mystery is enough to sustain the six-episode run, it’s hard to remember anyone of note beyond Zara and Rhys by the end of the series, and that’s where it fails. The other characters aren’t interesting enough for us to care about, and with so many players in the show, we should care about more than just Zara.

‘Steal’ Is a Slow Burn, but Once the Action Gets Going, It’s Addictive

Sophie Turner and Jacob Fortune-Lloyd in StealImage via Prime Video

Although Steal begins with a robbery, the series is a bit of a slow burn in the first half as the puzzle pieces are assembled, but by Episode 4, the show kicks everything up a notch, in which every moment delivers another surprise. The problem with these types of shows, however, is that sometimes those twists create a story that is too convoluted. By the end of the story, the viewer has been led in circles by discussions about the ethical uses of money and its purpose in society. When the mastermind behind the heist is revealed, it doesn’t come out of nowhere, but it is a little too preachy and far-fetched. You know that quote, “It’s about the journey, not the destination”? Well, that fits Steal perfectly.

It’s entertaining to continuously keep guessing who could be behind the show’s biggest conspiracy, but when the revelation comes, it’s far less satisfying. That being said, the journey is still a fun one, and as far as crime thrillers go, Steal is an easy and addictive binge, keeping the viewer on their toes while Zara tries to uncover the truth. It’s far from a masterpiece, but it’s still satisfying enough for crime thriller lovers.