Two out-of-work actors set out to stage a rendition of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet inside the world of Grand Theft Auto in this hilariously poignant documentary. Here’s our Grand Theft Hamlet review.
Here are two things that don’t normally go together: Grand Theft Auto and Shakespeare. At first glance, the Bard’s poetic words might feel out of place in the violent works of GTA, but in Sam Crane and Pinny Grylls’ Grand Theft Hamlet, the two go together like peas and carrots.
In January 2021, while the world was still ravaged by the pandemic, Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen stumbled on an amphitheatre in Grand Theft Auto Online. Actors by trade, both were out of work, and with seemingly no hope on the horizon, GTA provided them with some much-needed escapism.
So naturally, the men decide to stage a performance of Hamlet inside the game. Crane’s filmmaker partner Pinny Grylls (no relation to Bear) joins them in the game to document the entire process. Sound silly? A lot of it is, but, surprisingly, Grand Theft Hamlet isn’t really a documentary about Shakespeare, but of finding community in an extraordinary time of global isolation.
For most of its 90-minute runtime, Grand Theft Hamlet unfolds like the world’s strangest Let’s Play video. The entire film – aside from some phone footage at the end – is captured inside the game, which is a pretty ingenious approach, even if it often renders Mark, Sam and Pinny a little distant.
In their search for their on-stage Hamlet, Sam and Mark encounter a cavalcade of people from different backgrounds, countries and social backgrounds. They’re asked to perform monologues from their chosen Shakespeare plays to the sound of gunfire and screaming NPCs pleading for their (fake) lives. It’s also not uncommon for the actors to get gunned down in the middle of rehearsal. I bet you don’t get that in the West End.
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Grand Theft Hamlet proves to be much more profound and raw than you might expect. The production of Hamlet gives Sam and Mark a sense of purpose, and Mark especially struggles particularly hard without a wife or kids to keep him occupied. The documentary successfully reflects a lot of the real anxieties many of us felt in 2021, and still do, but does it with heaps of humour sprinkled in.
Some scenes do feel a little contrived, which diminishes the authenticity of the whole. Sam and Pinny have a domestic argument inside the game after Sam forgets her birthday. “In order to spend any time with you at all, I’m gonna have to go on this game,” Pinny points out even though the pair are in the same house. They acknowledge this too, but the effect is still a tad artificial in a film that otherwise feels delightfully spontaneous.
Grand Theft Hamlet often settles on being amusing instead of laugh-out-loud funny, but its biggest achievement is how it captures a specific mood and time. There’s an engaging honesty to its treatment of the lockdowns, which now almost feel like a bad dream. Both Crane and Oosterveen aren’t afraid to expose their own imperfections, creating a memorable, moving documentary. It’s not quite a homerun, but it’s a fascinating case study of two men looking for connection and meaning.
Grand Theft Hamlet is in UK cinemas from the 6th December. Find more information here.
