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United Kingdom United States
6.6 1h 31m

Grand Theft Hamlet

Two unemployed friends have a fresh idea: they want to stage Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' in Grand Theft Auto. But even in a virtual world, reality intrudes in a wild and trippy film shot entirely inside the ultra-violent video game.

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Top Cast

  • Sam Crane

    Sam Crane

    Hamlet (voice)

  • Pinny Grylls

    Pinny Grylls

    Filmmaker (voice)

  • Jen Cohn

    Jen Cohn

    Horatio (voice)

  • Tilly Steele

    Tilly Steele

    Ophelia (voice)

  • Dipo Ola

    Dipo Ola

    Laertes (voice)

  • Mark Oosterveen

    Mark Oosterveen

    Polonius (voice)

  • Gareth Turkington

    Gareth Turkington

    Claudius (voice)

  • Lizzie Wofford

    Lizzie Wofford

    Gertrude (voice)

  • Sam Forster

    Sam Forster

    Rozencrantz (voice)

Overview

Two unemployed friends have a fresh idea: they want to stage Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' in Grand Theft Auto. But even in a virtual world, reality intrudes in a wild and trippy film shot entirely inside the ultra-violent video game.

Rating

6.6 / 10
61 Reviews
1 Popular

2 Reviews

  • CinemaSerf
    CinemaSerf
    7 Dec 7, 2024

    Lockdown played havoc with so many lives, but professionally none more so than those in the entertainment industry. With theatres and cinemas all closed, their livelihoods dried up and a serious degree of ennui crept in to their day to day lives. One escape from that was "Grand Theft Auto" and that's where we meet jobbing actors Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen. Two forty-somethings who were dealing with this situation by shooting as many folks as they could online. The former lives with Pinny and has a couple of kids, the latter lives on his own and is struggling to find some sort of motivation. It's whilst playing the game one day that they find an outdoor auditorium and hit on the idea of performing "Hamlet" there. Swiftly they realise that standing on the stage belting out the best of the bard is only going to get their characters shot, then that two folks aren't going to be able to cover all the roles - so they embark on a project to recruit other players to fill the roles. What now ensues sees these men introduced to some serious would-be Thespians, some folks who think he wrote "Harry Potter" and some generally eclectic characters who all decide that this can be done after all. I'm not sure Shakespeare could ever have envisaged his play being put on using warplanes or giant blimps whilst the actors faced real peril (though I am sure we've all seen plays on stage where that might have been a benefit!) but as the two men start to become more absorbed with there mission it starts to become just as compelling to watch. Can they do it? How is their obsession impacting on their "real" lives? I have never played GTA in my life so was a little apprehensive that not knowing the game might impact on my enjoyment. It didn't at all, indeed that proved quite a fun template for their scenario as the mix of characters they encountered showed quite clearly that these men were not the only ones adrift in a closed-down world. As you'd expect, it is a quickly paced affair and I thought well worth and hour and a half.

  • tender_buttkiss
    tender_buttkiss
    6 Dec 1, 2025

    A weird little time capsule movie for a weird time in history, when a global pandemic forced us into lockdown and for some, this became an opportunity to create. Going into this, I thought I'd be seeing something much more different than the end product, and I couldn't help but feel a bit let down with the actual performance of the play. Felt like it was jumping around and just showing the highlights. Maybe that's for the best. But it is an interesting and ambitious idea, trying go crowd source a Shakespeare production with people playing characters in a digital world. Genuinely teared up at bits too.

Trailers & Clips

Official US Trailer
UK theatrical trailer

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