Analysis of Evening Standard's "King of Thieves" Review

The first thing to notice about the Evening Standard's review of "King of Thieves" is how patient critic Matthew Norman expects readers to be. The review's first five paragraphs tell little about the film except for the personal association between Norman and the story on which it is based. Of the two groups of potential readers, this will interest only one of them. People who have earmarked "King of Thieves" as a film they are interested in would know the story of it, and thus be willing to read Norman's story because they want to know what he thinks of it. However, those who simply wish to keep abreast of new releases may well lose patience with the story if they do not know what "King of Thieves" is about.

Norman frequently uses first-person in his review. The opening story is told from his perspective and he later uses "I" in his antepenultimate and final paragraph. It is unusual to see this used in a piece of journalism, but given that film reviews are opinion pieces, it is not too surprising that Norman uses it. He does, however, avoid using phrases such as "I think" in the piece, which allows it to come across as sophisticated and professional as opposed to reading like a blog post. Instead, he simply states what he believes as though it is fact; because we know this review is his opinion, this style is more effective. It makes us think Norman knows what he's talking about, and that he's certain of what he believes.

The paragraphs each comprise of more than just one sentence, but only two paragraphs consist of more than three sentences. Both of these owe to the use of short, snappy sentences. Norman varies his sentence length throughout the review and is not afraid to make them run long with plenty of commas. His word choice is intelligent, too; he knows that the educated readership of the Evening Standard will be able to understand what he's writing.

The star rating given at the top of the review caters to those who rely on the simplicity of a rating, rather than understanding what makes the film work and not work. In the actual review, Norman is more nuanced than suggesting plainly why he gave it a two-star rating, instead making reference to certain parts of the film and saying what was good or bad — one example is: "The trouble is that too many of these lines — “Everyone who ever used this vault is gonna wanna kill ya. With a spoon,” he warns young Basil (Charlie Cox) — sound like rejects from an early Minder script."