A Hole in Babylon

A Hole in Babylon is a drama documentary. It mixes news footage of the actual events of the 1975 Spaghetti House siege in Knightsbridge.

Three black men tried to rob the takings of a restaurant. It goes wrong immediately as the police were alerted. The robbers barricaded themselves with the restaurant staff.

The robbers then claimed they were part of a Black Liberation Army and the siege was a political act.

Director Horace Ové uses flashbacks to examine the three men. Their leader was Frank Davies who was straight out of prison. Wesley was stuck in a dead end job. Anthony was a middle class university drop out.

All experienced various kinds of discrimination. Frank complained of racism from the prison guards and the warden was not interested.

Ultimately the drama does not shy from the fact the robbery was motivated by greed. One of them had gambling debts.

This would had been a controversial play back in 1979. The type of filmmaking would had been seen as experimental but I did not find it engrossing enough.

However given the motive of the robbery, the political edge to this just does not fly. It might had worked better as a bit of a farce like Dog Day Afternoon.