Anything can be a movie. After all, as the great Anton Ego said, “Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.”
To wit, great cinematic art or even just cinema can come in any form. Cinema can look like Who Killed Captain Alex?, CarousHELL 2, Wavelength, or anything you can imagine. That includes recording you and your friends pulling off some incredible stunt in Grand Theft Auto. Who says footage captured within this game can’t qualify as a film? And if, just like the leads of the new documentary Grand Theft Hamlet, you’re filming you and other people trying to pull off a Hamlet performance in a video game…well, baby, you’ve got a cinematic stew going!
It's the earliest weeks of 2021 as Grand Theft Hamlet begins. The United Kingdom has entered another COVID-19 lockdown and people are stuck in their homes once more. During this time, Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen explore various standard Grand Theft Auto Online shenanigans. Soon, though, they stumble onto a concept. What if they put on a production of Hamlet within this game? Not just any spur-of-the-moment production either. This would be tantamount to a regular real-world play, with a lengthy audition process and weeks of rehearsals.
For Sam and especially Mark (the latter of whom is feeling substantially lonely in lockdown), this isn’t just a silly lark. They want to perform Hamlet with tangible pathos even in this ridiculous video game world of rocket launchers and car thievery. So begins the saga of Grand Theft Hamlet.
The Bard could’ve never dreamed of his words being recited by folks shooting at each other or Hamlet rehearsals guarded by a man in a gigantic green alien suit. All of that lunacy is par for the course, though, for Crane, Oosterveen, and director Pinny Grylls (Crane, the romantic partner of Grylls, also directs). As another Shakespeare play put it, "Life's but a walking shadow". However, in Grand Theft Auto Online, life's also never boring!
There’s something inherently humorous about juxtaposing passionate vocals from real-life gamers with their comparatively limited gaming avatars. People get so into these games, yet their digital representations can rarely properly express those feelings. It’s why that “Leroy Jenkins” video is still so funny after all these years. That passionate scream of “Leroy Jenkins” hysterically clashes with a wide shot of largely motionless video characters. Grand Theft Hamlet consistently demonstrates the comedic goldmine in this dissonance. It never stops being humorous hearing people recite lines from Hamlet or other Shakespeare productions while their bodies just stand there limp or crumble to the ground after getting shot.
That consistently humorous is especially amusing when folks like Sam, Mark, and Pinny nonchalantly respond to this phenomenon. After all, they’re used to the endless chaos of Grand Theft Auto Online. This is a world built for mayhem and violence, not plays! A potential auditioning actor randomly beating up a nearby man, that’s all part of a day’s work. Extremely humorous dark comedy comes out of situations like Sam and Mark having to evade trigger-happy cops in a helicopter while trying to execute a Hamlet rehearsal. Even running over a monologue on the beach doesn’t mean evading comically violent spectators.
Grand Theft Hamlet wrings lots of grim laughs out of this material. However, there’s also something unexpectedly relevant about watching Sam and Mark try to craft some unity in a virtual world of guns and debauchery. After all, all the chaos they encounter disrupting their Hamlet production feels only slightly more heightened than the whirlwind of uncertainty affecting the real world. Just as unexpected gangsters can cause a virtual Hamlet rehearsal to shut down, so too do things like the pandemic ensure our best-laid plans go sideways. Sam and Mark aren’t just fighting to pull off Hamlet in Grand Theft Auto Online. They’re also just trying to make new art a reality in a harrowing part of humanity's history.
These greater thoughts lend some depth to a project that could’ve registered as either gimmicky or just a feature-length advertisement for Grand Theft Auto Online. Thankfully, it avoids those fates in favor of inhabiting one of my favorite feel-good-movie subgenres: the “putting on a show” motion picture. Ragtag misfits trying to put on a public performance or realize an impossible art project is something I find irresistible (unless it’s the middling Hamlet 2 or those two Sing movies). It's a mold that charmingly worked for Be Kind Rewind, Brigsby Bear, and Topsy-Turvy, among others. Grand Theft Hamlet fits snugly into that warm and cozy cinematic canon.
Movingly living up to the potential of the “putting on a show” subgenre is possible thanks to Grylls and Crane taking the time to let audiences bond with the various performers making this Hamlet production possible. Grand Theft Auto may be a game of constant stimulation, but Grand Theft Hamlet understands the value of letting scenes simmer. One auditioning actor reciting a passage from the Quran is incredibly moving. Similarly poignant is later testimony from another performer revealing that this whole virtual Hamlet endeavor has coincided with her coming out as trans. In the middle of this process, she’s found solace in Hamlet’s plight to pursue his own truth.
This monologue isn’t just sweet. It also shows how even the most ancient forms of art can take on new life when interpreted through a fresh lens. That can include exploring how an arcane play is relevant to a newly-out trans person or performing Hamlet in Grand Theft Auto Online! Grand Theft Hamlet’s blending of old and new forms of art is exhilarating and emotionally stirring to witness. Though we’re only a few weeks into 2025, I’d also wager it’s the only movie this year where you’ll hear a director softly request “please don’t kill the actors!” while trying to hold auditions. Such memorably unique dialogue and scenarios alone make Grand Theft Hamlet’s world well worth exploring!