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Entrapment (20th Century Fox) Rated R Written by Ronald Bass and William Broyles, Jr. Directed by Jon Amiel
Review by Victory A. Marasigan
There must be a stipulation in Catherine Zeta-Jones' contract which says that her face must be lit so that her eyes twinkle in every shot in which she appears. In Entrapment, the flashy follow-up to her breakthrough role in The Mask of Zorro, there is nary a scene in which she doesn't look like a team of makeup people just powdered her nose.
Zeta-Jones is Gin Baker, an eager insurance investigator who sets out on an impossible mission of sorts to catch master art thief Robert MacDougal (Sean Connery, in a variation of his escaped con role in The Rock) in the act. After tracking him down in London, Baker offers the aging entrepreneur a sweet deal: he'll aid her in the theft of a jeweled gold mask at an art exhibit and get a share of the profits from its sale. Of course, the sexual tension in their strange partnership starts building immediately, giving rise to plenty of boring romantic scenes during which the audience can go to the concession stand and get refills on their popcorn.
Is Baker setting MacDougal up for a fall, or is she just as cunning thief as he is? An even more pressing question: Will director stop teasing us with his cheesily non-revealing shots Zeta-Jones in the altogether? Will we see the liver-spotted skin (ugh) of Mr. Connery mixing it up with own Ms. Zeta-Jones' own Ivory-soap bod? Do we dare keep our eyes open to find out?
Admittedly, when hokey romance isn't getting in the way, the film is fun to watch. With its expertly executed heists and sometimes heart-poundingly tense quandaries, Entrapment actually manages to reach an adequate level of excitement. In one memorable scene, Gin performs a ballet-like navigation of a room criss-crossed by invisible lasers, moving with the same caution Tom Cruise evoked when he did his Peter Pan impression in Mission: Impossible (It's probably no coincidence that M:I's Ving Rhames appears in a supporting role as a comrade of MacDougal). But even with all the film's meticulous dissections of the art of thievery, certain ponderous aspects of their skill seem to be taken for granted. For example, do all master thieves have the ability to zip in and out of the tightest places without being seen, the limits of their own agility and the laws of physics notwithstanding? How do the hell do they do this?
Interestingly, the objects of the thieves' passion -- the artworks themselves -- are given very little scrutiny. The script never allows the characters to explain what their fascination is with the pieces they steal. Instead, a little more than halfway through the film, MacDougal and Baker become greedy bank robbers who'd rather go for the big score than collect priceless masterpieces.
When all's said and done, and the credits roll over the film's aw-shucks ending, you're left with the echoes of a few cheap thrills, and also with the idea that there wasn't really that much to be excited about. The thieves' nifty gadgets (not to mention their acrobatic stunt doubles) are the real stars here. And they hold their own quite well, considering that Zeta-Jones' face tries its very best to hog screen time.
GRADE: B-
Reviewed April 27, 1999 at Sony Valley Center 9, Reisterstown, MD.
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