Rafferty Law’s young hero is a graffiti artist and Michael Caine’s Fagin an ex-art dealer in this under-par update of Oliver Twist
Michael Caine already has the distinction of appearing in what many believe is the greatest Dickens adaptation of all time: The Muppets
Christmas Carol, in which he played Scrooge. Now he is Fagin in this try-hard modern reboot of Oliver Twist, in which the plot and indeed meaning of the original has been jettisoned, leaving few of the characters – though the original’s tiny, sticky-fingered tealeaves are now promoted to supercool young adulthood. It never really comes to life and there’s a kids-TV feel to most of it, although the free-running scenes are watchable enough, and Caine’s disguise as a grumpy
Russian plutocrat with a fake moustache raises some laughs.
Rafferty Law (the dead spit of his dad, Jude Law) plays Twist, a young graffiti artist who gets roped into street crime and finds himself hanging out with some cheeky but nonviolent young chancers in Fagin’s employ: a gender-switched Dodge (Rita Ora), and a character called Red (Sophie Simnett), who is in an abusive relationship with another gender-switched character, Sikes, played by Lena Headey. Caine’s Fagin turns out to be a former art dealer ruined by an unscrupulous competitor (enjoyably played by David Walliams), so Fagin plans an elaborate robbery to get his own back on this absolute rotter.