Director Colin McIvor Talks Thriller Film ‘No Ordinary Heist’ Starring Eddie Marsan and Éanna Hardwicke – Making of, Filming Locations, Working With Cast

‘No Ordinary Heist’ is a gripping crime thriller film that is based on a true bank heist story. Director Colin McIvor co-wrote the film with Aisling Corristine. The synopsis of the film states that it recreates the infamous 2004 Northern Bank robbery, one of the largest cash heists in UK and Irish history. On December 19th, Richard Murphy, a white-collar bank manager, and Barry McKenna, a working-class supervisor, are taken hostage alongside Richard’s wife and Barry’s mother. Their captors issue a chilling ultimatum: empty the bank’s vaults or their loved ones will be killed. Longtime workplace rivals divided by class, resentment, and mistrust, Richard and Barry are forced underground into the vaults to carry out the robbery. As hours pass, buried histories surface and paranoia takes hold, with each man suspecting the other of being the inside man behind the crime. With lives on the line, they must set aside suspicion and unite or lose everything.

‘No Ordinary Heist’ stars Eddie Marsan and Éanna Hardwicke, with Eva Birthistle and Michelle Fairley. The film originally came out in select theaters in April of 2026 and next came out on digital video-on-demand platforms.

I wanted to touch base with director/writer Colin McIvor to learn more about how he formulated the story for the film, his experience with filming locations and working with the cast, as well as any funny stories or challenges he wanted to share. Check out the interview below:

Wendy Shepherd: Hello Colin. I understand you were moved to co-write and direct the film after seeing the site of the bank the morning after the robbery. How long after witnessing and learning the details were you able to turn the story into a film?

Colin McIvor: Witnessing firsthand that cordoned-off bank in Belfast stuck with me for a couple of years. At first, like everyone else, I was fascinated by the sheer scale of the crime. But as details trickled out over time about how it was actually pulled off, not through high-tech vaults or explosives, but by taking two ordinary families hostage in their own homes, the real story started to take shape in my mind as a simple two-hander.

The journey from development to screen took several years. My co-writer, Aisling Corristine, and I spent a long time finding the right focus, stripping away the politics and sensationalism to get to the core human drama. By the time we attached our producers and locked in the financing, that time had allowed us to refine it into a precise, character-driven thriller rather than a tropey heist film.

Wendy Shepherd: What was the most interesting aspect of the story for you?

Colin McIvor: The human aspect of the crime itself. Most heist movies are about the thieves, the action, the stunts. No Ordinary Heist is about the two bank employees whose families were held at gunpoint as they were forced to become unwilling accomplices to one of the largest bank heists in history. That psychological tightrope was infinitely more compelling to me than anything else.

Wendy Shepherd: You kept the focus on the two bank employees and their families who were held hostage rather than the politics or the identity of the gang involved. Why was that important to the story you wanted to tell?

Colin McIvor: As a child of the Northern Irish ‘Troubles’, the last thing I wanted to create was a ‘politics, us versus them’ film. Everyone knows the headlines, but very few people consider what it felt like to be inside those houses that night, or inside the bank for the following 24 hours.

By keeping the camera tightly focused on Richard and Barry and their families, the film becomes a universal story about survival, vulnerability, and moral pressure under extreme conditions. It brings the audience right into the room with them, experiencing the claustrophobia and terror firsthand.

Wendy Shepherd: Where were the filming locations and how difficult was it to set things up to emulate the original look?

Colin McIvor: We filmed across locations in both Dublin and Belfast. Belfast has been transformed dramatically since 2004 into a vibrant, modern European city, so rolling the clock back twenty years required very deliberate crafting.

Our production design, lighting and cinematography leaned into a precise, restrained aesthetic. We sought out period-accurate architecture, modified interiors, and carefully controlled colour palettes to evoke the mid-2000s without letting vintage nostalgia distract from the tension. Recreating the scale and atmosphere of the bank headquarters in confined shooting environments was a challenge, but it forced us to be extremely visual and creative approached every single scene.

Wendy Shepherd: I feel like the casting was great for how Eddie Marsan as Richard Murry and Éanna Hardwicke as Barry McKenna interact with each other as two different men who are forced into an impossible partnership. Did they match up with your expectations for the roles, and did they help shape their characters?

Colin McIvor: They blew my expectations out of the water to be honest. Eddie and Éanna are two absolute powerhouses of precision and instinct.

On set, they didn’t just play the screenplay, they discovered subtle beats of non-verbal communication and unspoken friction that elevated the tension in every scene. Watching them build that forced trust in real time was a true masterclass.

Wendy Shepherd: What made you decide to cast the wonderful Michelle Fairley in the role of Mags Fulton, the bank’s head of security? And I’m curious, were there any funny things that happened during filming those intense, almost-caught-the-men-stealing scenes?

Colin McIvor: Michelle is an absolute force of nature. She possesses an innate authority and sharpness that makes Mags immediately formidable, but she also brings real intelligence and beautiful humanity to the role. She doesn’t play an archetype, she plays a sharp professional doing her job, which makes the threat of her catching Richard and Barry that much greater.

The entire cast and crew were a joy to work with but what always made me laugh was how recognisable Eddie Marsan was around Dublin and Belfast from all his amazing film and TV work. On one such hilarious occasion in a Belfast pub, he was asked, “What are you doing over here?” and quick as a flash he replied, “I’m here to rob your bank!”

Wendy Shepherd: Can you share a couple of the most challenging parts of filming?

Colin McIvor: There were maybe challenges, not least when we lost a full day of filming to a storm, but one of the biggest was maintaining constant psychological and claustrophobic tension. A significant portion of the story takes place inside domestic interiors and a cash vault. Keeping the camera dynamic and the audience on the edge of their seats when characters are confined to small rooms required meticulous planning among all our fab departments.

Another hurdle was pacing the double narrative: simultaneously tracking the high-stakes pressure inside the bank alongside the quiet nightmare happening back at the families’ homes. Balancing those two threads so that neither lost momentum was something the editor, John Walters, and I worked and reworked throughout post-production.

Wendy Shepherd: Now that the film is out, what has the feedback been like?

Colin McIvor: It’s been incredibly gratifying. The response from audiences and critics, both at festivals like Santa Barbara, Dublin, and Glasgow, and through our theatrical releases has been really great. Hearing people talk about the performances and the tension afterwards, alongside having a low-budget indie feature stay on multiplex cinema screens across the country for so, so many weeks is all you could dream of as a filmmaker.

Wendy Shepherd: What’s next for you?

Colin McIvor: I’m currently attached/developing a number of projects across features and television that I’m really excited about. I love finding stories that live in those high-stakes, grey areas of human nature, so whatever comes next will definitely stay in that territory.

Colin, thank you for sharing your filmmaking story! I really enjoyed learning these details. I think your film will stand the test of time and continue to be enjoyable to watch. I’m looking forward to checking out your new upcoming projects.

Everyone can check out the trailer and click the link below to watch the film…

‘No Ordinary Heist,’ is now available to stream on Tubi. Click the link below to watch now: https://tubitv.com/movies/100058775/no-ordinary-heist