Editor’s Note
This article reviews Netflix’s new documentary “The Antwerp Diamonds: An Almost Perfect Heist,” which details a 2003 diamond robbery. While the subject is cinematic, the film reportedly lacks the impact of the platform’s prior true-crime hits.
This Friday, August 8th, Netflix released the documentary The Antwerp Diamonds: An Almost Perfect Heist. Produced by the same team behind some of the platform’s major successes like The Tinder Swindler and Don’t F**k With Cats, the film revisits a heist worthy of a movie but struggles to have the same effect as its predecessors.
This time, it’s not about cocaine trafficking, but rather diamond trafficking. In February 2003, Antwerp was the nerve center of the global diamond trade. The official Diamond Center, where most merchants had their offices, was robbed. The immense vault housing all the safes of the diamond dealers in the center was opened and stripped of all its goods. According to police, the value of the stolen goods was around $100 million. Through testimonies from the Belgian police who led the investigation and from Leonardo Notarbartolo, the mastermind convicted of orchestrating this impressive heist, the film traces how one of the most surveilled places in Belgium could suffer a robbery of such magnitude without anyone noticing.
The criminal operation is impressive and extraordinary. And while Leonardo Notarbartolo is undoubtedly an interesting character to discover, the film sorely lacks an extra soul. To convince us, it would have needed very strong human stakes, as was the case for The Tinder Swindler and Don’t F**k With Cats, which we loved watching. The criminal protagonist of the case testifies himself. All the ingredients to please us were there, and despite this, the recipe doesn’t work this time.
Yet, the producers tried to structure this documentary in the style of Ocean’s Eleven and offer twists reminiscent of Fight Club, a dose of suspense as in The Tinder Swindler, or a much more outlandish dose of irony as in Is There a Dealer on the Plane?. The documentary, while still interesting for those unfamiliar with the case and wishing to discover it, positions itself in a rather bland middle ground that will not make history, neither on the platform nor in our memories.