This Is a Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist

A dazzling mash-up of the usual elements that go into these increasingly popular docu-programs: archival news footage and crime scene photos; audio recordings from informants; grainy security cam footage; well-crafted graphics mapping out the timeline and the locales for various key events; interviews with a number of investigators, prosecutors, defense attorneys, eyewitnesses and journalists; and stylish re-creations of events from long ago. “This Is a Robbery” raises more questions than it answers, but those questions are deeply intriguing.

What makes This Is a Robbery so compelling, and unique in contrast to the slew of other true crime docuseries available, is that everything about this crime is weird. The show does a terrific job of using experts to relay the strangeness of the heist – from what was (and wasn’t) stolen to the decision to keep the security guards alive.

With its atmospheric reenactments, lucid, witty editing, and entertaining interviewees (including Globe reporter Shelley Murphy, columnist Kevin Cullen, and retired Pulitzer Prize-winner Stephen Kurkjian), the film might not solve the three-decade old case, but does transform it into a frustrating and irresistible mystery.

This is a Robbery has a propulsive momentum that doesn’t interfere with its comprehensive examination of its story’s numerous angles. Utilizing an array of graphical timelines and maps, photographs, and archival news and crime scene videos, it lucidly details the multiple threads that comprise its tale.

The cast expands outwards from its most intriguing hub, encompassing attorneys, museum higher-ups, those connected to suspects, and people with a great deal to say. ... In all, this makes for a fascinating portrait of an incident that lives on in the memory of a city that has both high culture and organized crime encoded in its DNA.

Despite the first episode’s draggy pace, the aftermath of the Gardner Museum robbery is what will keep us watching.

Though This Is a Robbery has its shortcomings, it’s also short—and enticing enough to warrant a four-hour watch session. The series is also honest, and stays true to the legacy of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

One of the local reporters who’s been on the Gardner case beat since the beginning says that it’s been “30 years that these masterpieces have been missing. It needs a break.” “This is a Robbery” does a decent job at laying out what’s happened over those three decades — it also does a lot to prove that statement right.

This four-part documentary about the theft of 13 works of art from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990 is a rambling if entertaining search for the possible culprits in a major real-world whodunit.

"This Is a Robbery" occasionally delivers on the promise of its engrossing introduction, but is largely held back by the creators' obvious desire to methodically introduce and dismiss various theories, as well as an unfortunate lack of visual interest (especially for a series centered on art).

As is, "This is a Robbery" alternates between superficially digging into major issues like the impact of the mob around the world (it skims through the IRA, for example, and its connection to the Boston mob in a matter of minutes) and repetitively repeating details of the crime itself. It’s interesting because the case and its many players are interesting, but it’s poorly made.