‘Steal’ Review: Sophie Turner at the Center of a Financial Crime (Prime Video)

Bank robberies are no longer what they used to be. No more drilling into vaults, extracting secret codes at gunpoint, or locking down building entrances. The only element that remains intact is the hostage situation. At least that’s the case in the robbery that opens the British series Steal, which occupies its entire first episode and sets the story in motion. There is no physical cash here: the theft involves billions of dollars moved between offshore accounts and cryptocurrencies. The “victim” is an investment bank—an impersonal, sterile office tucked inside a downtown London building. And in what comes closest to a traditional heist, the crime is carried out by a group of people in disguise.

The series stars Sophie Turner as Zara Dunne, a senior employee at Lochmill Capital, an investment bank that manages pension funds—retirement money, in plain terms—worth billions. One ordinary morning at her dull, routine job (that’s how she describes it to a newcomer) is violently interrupted by the arrival of an armed group that enters the building with alarming ease. They present themselves as old-school robbers, complete with prosthetic masks. They shout, confiscate employees’ phones, and brutally assault several people to assert control. Zara and her colleague Luke (Archie Madekwe, recently seen in Lurker) are then forced to execute a tense, high-stakes financial transfer worth billions.

The first episode ends with a revelation—or what appears to be one—that significantly alters how the series will unfold. To avoid spoilers, it’s best left at that. What matters is that this twist reshapes both the dramatic stakes and the backstory of what we’ve just witnessed: how the robbery was planned, who was involved, and why. “What matters is knowing where the money went,” the investigators insist, led by a detective (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) who has problems of his own. From that point on, the investigation moves along two parallel tracks. On one side are the criminals, their collaborators, spies, and informants. On the other are the movements of those who control serious money behind the scenes.

The opening episode is close to flawless: pure narrative tension, tightly contained within a specific time frame and confined space. Even though the robbery takes place in an office and unfolds entirely on computers—no walls blown open, no vaults breached—it’s executed with pace, urgency, and moments of shocking, bloody violence. The final reveal adds an unexpected shift in perspective that elevates the whole operation. From there on, however, the series becomes more conventional and increasingly strained, relying on predictable twists, miraculous escapes from dangerous situations, and a pileup of red herrings that begin to trip over one another.

Creator and writer Nikias attempts to add depth by layering in troubled personal backstories—Zara’s toxic relationship with her overbearing mother, the investigator’s involvement in illegal gambling, and others—but these threads feel more distracting than enriching. It quickly becomes clear that the eventual resolution will have little to do with what initially seems plausible. By the time new players enter the story toward the end of the third episode, the narrative is already starting to spiral out of control.

What Steal does offer—mostly in the background—is a critical view of a system of financial exploitation that drains people of their savings in order to enrich a few, often with the tacit approval of political power. The income gap between executives and employees—both within the investment bank and among the authorities—is not just part of the dramatic conflict; it clarifies what the series means by its title. This is not only a robbery of a bank, but a system designed around taking people’s money in plain sight.