The MMA Fighter Who Pulled Off the Largest Money Heist in U.K. History
Have you heard the one about the MMA fighter who helped mastermind the biggest heist in British history? Pat Kondelis did. Then the multiple Emmy winner turned the Lee Murray story into a captivating four-part documentary for Showtime. Catching Lightning, premiering April 9,is by turns sly, brutal, and quite funny, a very British crime story with a very dangerous man at its center. You might enter its cage wondering if it really needs to be four hours long, but chances are you’ll end up hanging on every bizarre turn and detail. This is polished documentary filmmaking that turns a potentially sensationalist tale into a study of criminal hubris and in some cases comical stupidity. It’s also a showcase for some colorful MMA characters, who often can’t seem to believe the stories they’re relating.
The Securitas cash depot was a squat, fortress-like building in Kent, England, where millions of pounds were processed for various banks. In Feb. 2006, it was relieved of some £53 million by seven men who had kidnapped the depot manager, his wife, and their child; they would have taken more had they the means to transport it. They left behind a cornucopia of evidence which, years later, has police investigators involved with the case shaking their heads. To quote Hal Holbrook’s Deep Throat in All the President’s Men, “The truth is these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.”
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All of which has the makings of great TV even if the robbers had just been dudes off the street. In fact, six of them were. But the seventh was Murray, a handsome brawler from Southeast London who was once a rising star in the MMA world. A violent hothead who ran with criminal lunatics, Murray was known as “Lightning Lee” for the speed and power of his punches (his floor game wasn’t quite as strong). In Catching Lightning, MMA luminaries like Anderson Silva and Chuck Liddell line up to tell Murray stories, along with Murray’s trainers, peers, and friends. Many of them were present for a storied drunken brawl outside a London club, in which Murray allegedly knocked out MMA legend Tito Ortiz. The telling of this story, which everyone interviewed confirms, is worth the price of admission by itself.
One of the documentary’s strengths is its willingness to let its characters talk. The strategy pays particular dividends with the English interview subjects, many of whom apply a bone-dry sense of humor to the salacious material. The Cage Rage promoter Dave O’Donnell rips off some wicked descriptions of Murray’s mental state, including “a switch in his nut” and “a little bit ticked to the side.” The documentary uses the same statement from the prosecutor in the case, Sir John Nutting, to introduce each episode. Intoning like John Houseman, he sums it up: “The motive for this crime? Pure and simple: Greed.”
Kondelis is clearly having fun here, but he’s also applying some serious filmmaking chops. He marshals his resources like a master, mixing footage from the crime — yes, the cameras were rolling — with interviews (including jailhouse audio of Murray, in conversations recorded by his wife and a friend well before production), news accounts, fight footage, graphics, and reenactments that Errol Morris would approve of. In short, he uses everything at his disposal to create a storytelling rhythm, and he judiciously distributes the important information throughout the four episodes. There’s nothing overcooked about Catching Lightning — no unnecessary sizzle conceived to capture short attention spans. Kondelis trusts his material, and his own ability to shape it.
For all its intrigue, action, and gallows humor, Catching Lightning is also well aware of the story’s darker dimensions. The Securitas staffers who were present for the robbery attest to the trauma they felt now, and still feel. Kondelis gives them time to tell their stories. Then, he returns to the insanity. Even when it becomes entertaining, and with this story that can’t be helped, Catching Lightning is a counterweight to breezy heist yarns like the Ocean’s movies, or even the planning of the Air France and Lufthansa heists in Goodfellas. Its spiritual forebears are more along the lines of Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing, or John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle, seamy stories of desperate men. Murray might have been a great fighter, but he was one dumb criminal.
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