Synopsis:

A seasoned criminal uses his art experience to facilitate a massive, life-changing heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts. A fictional story inspired by a real event.

Kevin Deeley recognized early on that his South Boston accent wouldn’t elevate him into the Boston circles of art and politics. He finds his first big break fundraising on the “Hart for President” campaign. It was so easy-going door to door, raising thousands of dollars in untraceable cash. “Are you a Kennedy?” donors asked him. Kevin raised enough money to bankroll his first big art heist. Posing as John Vanderbilt, he was invited as an honored guest for a private tour of the Packard Museum – learning enough to score his first Rembrandt. When he signed up for art classes, he met Olympia, the star of the studio and a woman with an uncanny talent to copy the work of old masters. Kevin was smitten. With Olympia working at an auction house, ambitious plans began to formulate in Kevin’s brain.

When the Hart campaign goes south, the fundraising accountants make Kevin the fall guy and he is summarily sent to federal prison. In prison, disaster leads to opportunity when Kevin meets Bobbie Gandolpho, a small-time crook who reveals to Kevin how easy it was to enter an exclusive museum in Boston after hours. Bobbie explains that the night shift guards at the Gardner frequently have band practice in the basement – once you were in, you could play all night – or steal whatever you needed. Bobbie says it’s all for naught, though, because without something the FEDs want, you won’t get out of jail for years. But “What if you had a Rembrandt?” asks Kevin. Bobbie arranges through the mob boss Aiden O’Brien to trade the Rembrandt for freedom from prison.

When Kevin gets out, he looks for Olympia at the auction house, who gives him cold reception when he tries to consign a fake “Turner”, which she reluctantly signs up for the next auction. On the big day, Aidan O’Brien approaches Kevin. “I’m the one who got you out of jail. You owe me now.” Kevin slowly starts to realize the tangled web he has created. To pay his debt to Aidan, he must acquire a Rembrandt seascape and there is only one museum in Boston that has such a painting.

On St. Patrick’s Day, 1990, two men dressed as Boston Policemen enter the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum, tie up the guards in the basement, and steal, among other priceless works, Rembrandt’s only seascape.