Breaking even: why we can’t get enough of robbing the rich

Most television obeys the law. In crime dramas, which seem to make up the lion’s share of all scripted television, the cops get their man, the bad guys get banged up, and we can all go to bed knowing the order of things has been restored – crime doesn’t pay, kids. Except when it does. Heist dramas are that exception to the rule. From The Great Train Robbery, at the very dawn of cinema, to The Taking of Pelham 123 via The Italian Job, Ocean’s Eleven to Thirteen (and back to 8) and on to televisio