Premiering at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival before its Irish release, No Ordinary Heist is a tense thriller from writer-director Colin McIvor, inspired by the events surrounding the 2004 Northern Bank robbery in Belfast. Led by Eddie Marsan and Éanna Hardwicke, the film reframes a notorious real-life crime through a tightly wound, character-driven lens, focusing on two men forced into an impossible situation.
Co-written with Aisling Corristine and developed over several years, the film leans into claustrophobia, performance and collaboration, foregrounding the human stakes behind the heist.
Ahead of its release, Lauren Gallagher spoke with McIvor and Marsan about adapting real events for the screen, working within budget constraints, and building a story rooted in character rather than scale.
Colin, in terms of being both the writer and the director, did a lot change when you were adapting No Ordinary Heist from script to screen?
Colin: Not necessarily. You always have to adapt based on the reality of what your locations afford you. Your cast availability, your weather, your budget. That's the main thing. So you're always adapting. You're always trying to make something that's impossible to happen within a time frame. So nothing changed there really. But we just got really lucky.
We hit on a bunch of really, well, obviously fantastic cast, fantastic crew, locations came together really quickly. We were able to make it all work “within the budget”. In inverted commas. The producer may tell you otherwise.
We had one time where there was a storm hit in the middle of production and we lost a day of filming. And at that point, we really, really had to turn things around. But not to the detriment of the script or anything like that. So we were very loyal. And the boys, Eddie [Marsan] and Éanna [Hardwicke], were very loyal to the script throughout. So at no point did I feel like I was sacrificing any of our writing.
And for you, Eddie, what was it about the script that first drew you to it?
Eddie: It was just the premise for me. It's two men whose families have been kidnapped and threatened with death unless they rob the bank. And they both hate each other, but they have to rob a bank together. It's just a brilliant premise.
Lauren: And what are you hoping the audience will take away from it tonight?
Colin: I'm just happy to get it out there, to be honest. We've been sitting on this project. I put the first draft together years ago, brought Aisling Corristine on board, and she helped me turn it around. It's been probably five years in the making, maybe more, so I'm just glad to get it out there and literally hear the public, who know nothing about what we have been involved in for the last while, get their feedback on it. So that's my big thing tonight.
And are there any challenges in adapting a real story to the screen and also approaching a character who is based on a real person?
Colin: I mean, the main thing for us was we were never making a story about the real people. The premise that appealed to me was the guys, as Eddie said, who were drawn together and forced to do what they were forced to do. The largest cash heist in British and Irish history, without the gang ever stepping foot in the bank. But I didn't set out to make a documentary. I didn't want to make a story about the real people.
I just wanted to put two brilliant actors together and create a boiler, claustrophobic environment that they had to deliver in. So the real story really doesn't appeal to me. The politics of it, the fallout afterwards, none of that appeals really. That was never a consideration.
Eddie: Well, I mean, those challenges you just spoke of had already been taken care of by Colin and Aisling. I think I'm just like a session musician. They write the songs and I just play the notes.
Colin: He's much more than that.
Did you find that the filmmaking process was being driven more by the heist mechanics or by the characters?
Colin: Always the characters, always the characters. I sat behind the monitor and I sat with Aisling, I sat with Ruth [Carter] and the producers and I just watched Eddie and Éanna bring it to another level.
There's scenes within the film, I'll not get into it now, where the two of them work together to say, “what if we did this?” And when you saw it on screen it was like, “Christ, that's the way to go!” It was never anything other than organic and a collaborative experience. It's been great from start to finish. Just keen to get it out there and see what folks think.
Eddie: One of the advantages of the restrictions on films being made at a lower budget now is that you have to go back to the basics.
You have to go back to good script, good acting, good directing. There's no special effects, there's no money to throw at it. It's just you solve a problem by being creative. And that means you come up with creative films.
No Ordinary Heist premiered at Dublin International Film Festival 22nd February 2026.
Film Ireland Editor
Film Ireland Editor
