FIFTEEN years ago, a Boston museum was ransacked of 13 paintings, including Vermeer’s “The Concert,” one of the most valuable stolen canvases in the world. The documentary “Stolen” delves into the crazy story behind the brazen theft – the robbers gained access to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum by posing as cops – and the shady characters surrounding it.

Since the case remains unsolved, the film lacks a true ending, but it finds some wonderful personalities along the way.

Harold Smith, a New York art detective with an eye patch, a bowler and a face decimated by skin cancer, pursues the case with courtly good manners. Several colorful underworld types – including a Cockney informant called “the Turbocharger” – seem to know more than they let on; one of them swears that if blanket immunity were granted, the paintings would turn up in 30 minutes.

But there are also hints that the IRA and the Irish-American gangster “Whitey” Bulger, who is right next to Osama bin Laden on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, are involved.

The film would do better to concentrate all its resources on this tantalizing trail. Instead, it keeps taking breaks to interview novelists who sing of the Vermeer in purple prose, which clogs up the momentum.

But it’s easy to understand why so many people have been obsessed with this story for so long. When the paintings are finally found, the story will make a great Hollywood movie.

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STOLEN

[***] (Three stars)

High-art lowlifes.

Running time: 83 minutes. Not rated (nothing objectionable). At the Cinema Village, 12th Street, east of Fifth Avenue.