’12 12 12′ Review: Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan’s Ticking-Clock Heist Thriller Runs on Broken Time

Every episode of “12 12 12” opens with the same explanation of its title: Citing the fictitious law enforcement manual, “Principles of Crime, FBI Research Center, 4th Edition,” Anthony Mackie explains, “A high asset robbery, professionally conceived, is 12 months in planning, 12 hours in execution. A bank robber who’s not caught within 12 days is not caught at all.” Then the screen splits horizontally to reveal images from the 12 months of preparation, the 12 hours of execution, and the 12 days when thief extraordinaire Paul Galvin (Jamie Dornan) does his best to elude Mackie’s obsessed FBI agent Jack Strickland. And then, we’re off to the races.

The heist genre, in theory, seems ripe for this kind of temporal manipulation. A game of wits between cops and criminals typically involves plenty of twists, many of which pull the rug out by flashing back to show where, when, and how it was placed so stealthily underfoot. Also working in “12 12 12’s” favor is the genre’s familiarity: There will be “getting the team together” montages, there will be unexpected hiccups in the days and hours during the robbery, there will be chest-thumping meetings between our confident cop and the equally confident con artist. Throw in the complex heist itself and the tense escape soon after, and there appear to be enough recognizable pieces that jumbling them up shouldn’t prove too confusing.

And “12 12 12” isn’t confusing. It is, however, convoluted. Taking a serpentine route through well-trodden territory does more to undermine our enjoyment of an otherwise well-mounted chase than it does to liven things up. Heists are inherently exciting. They’re exciting in conception (when master thieves can wow us with their slick plans), they’re exciting to see carried out (when the shit hits the fan and even the most astute architects have to think on their feet), and they’re exciting to get away with (when safety is within reach, but it could be snatched away at any moment). Anticipation, suspense, and anxiety work to form a natural arc, and disrupting that arc over and over, every hour for eight hours, in service of a few extra twists — and to extend what’s obviously a movie-length story across eight hours — simply isn’t worth it.

On that note, let me get this minor but essential point out of the way now, quickly and clearly: Jamie Dornan needs more weird roles, not more conventional ones. We saw what he can do in “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar” (a modern comedy classic). Let the man cook — or sing or dance or all three at once! He can do it! Honestly, I believe he can do anything. (Remember the bee movie?! No, not that bee movie — the other one.)

Anyway, here his character’s only unique attribute is his brilliant… planning. He’s got a mind for details, and he uses it to map out every possible contingency before embarking on his elaborate heists. Caught in a bind with his dumbass brother (Jack Kesy, doing his best Travis Kelce impression), Bobby lays it out in aptly blunt terms: “Paul, you’re the fucking plan guy, so plan me a plan.”

Jamie Dornan in ’12 12 12′Courtesy of Apple TV

But the only plans Paul wants to make these days are for his family: He’s happy working on fishing boats off the coast of France and coming home to his wife, Severine (Agathe Rousselle), in their little apartment above a bar. He’s bonded with his father-in-law, Serge (José Garcia), who’s the Marxist papa Paul never had, and he’s got a kid on the way.

Unfortunately, Bobby can’t stop being Bobby and winds up indebted to the wrong people; people who don’t just want their money back, but who want more money to make up for the inconvenience. And since Bobby already owes more money than either brother could ever pay back, Paul has to take on one last job to free his brother — and himself — from their lives of crime.

Too bad that puts him back on Jack’s radar or, I should say, squarely on Jack’s radar, since Jack is nursing a (secret) grudge against Paul from years earlier. Ever since, he’s been obsessed with catching the one criminal who’s eluded his grasp. He wants revenge, he wants “respect,” he wants to win — “12 12 12” throws out a number of motivations for Jack early on that clearly don’t paint the full picture. They’re placeholder reasons until the show deems it time to dig into what’s really driving him to move to Zurich, hole up in a shitty police station, and wait for Paul to try to steal something.

Mackie, who’s reunited with his “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” director Kari Skogland, gives great determined face, and Dornan is the softest, sweetest guy on the FBI’s most-wanted list. Thankfully, co-creators Dudi Appleton and Jim Keeble don’t ask their lead characters to betray their core identities amid all the twists and turns, shading Jack as more of an antagonist (all-consumed and, thus, single-minded to a fault) and Paul as more of the protagonist. (He doesn’t want to steal, but now that he must, he’s going to do it the right way.) That helps keep our rooting interests in line, which goes a long way toward a satisfying emotional payoff, even when the momentum ebbs and flows with every flash-forward, -back, and -sideways.

With slick locations and clever-enough problem-solving, “12 12 12” should satisfy die-hard heist fans (but not “Die Hard’s” heist fans). It just takes a circuitous route to scratching that itch, and that’s almost as aggravating as not scratching it at all.

Grade: C

“12 12 12” premieres Friday, November 13 on Apple TV with two episodes. New episodes will be released weekly through the finale (Episode 8) on December 25.