ENTRAPMENT (1999)
Rating = *** out of ******
Stockholm film Review (http://www.reviewfilm.com)
After a daring robbery of a Rembrandt, insurance agent Gin Baker (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is convinced that a famous art thief, Robert 'Mac' McDougal (Sean Connery) has been responsible, and persuades her boss Hector Cruz (Will Patton) to let her go undercover in order to track Mac down. Hector reluctantly agrees, and Gin heads to London and soon makes contact with Mac. She persuades him that she is a fellow thief, and that she needs his help in order to steal a priceless (what else ?) Chinese mask, which is on display in an English castle. They devise an intricate plan to bypass the security systems (which involves lots of lasers), which involves the help of Mac's associate, Thibadeaux (Ving Rhames). The questions are, is Mac really convinced that Gin is a bone fide thief, and what is Gin's real role; undercover agent or double agent ?
Entrapment is a curiously listless affair. It's intent seems to be a glossy, fast-paced international thriller, full of exotic locales and exciting action sequences. Almost like a 007 movie, perhaps ? However, no amount of tourist scenes from the U.S. and Malaysia can disguise the fact the movie is more or less set in Scotland. Sound economics maybe, but not so exotic. Sean Connery produced this movie and he finished it under budget. It shows. It might also explain the most puzzling aspect of the film. There are two heists in the film, the theft of the mask, which takes up most of the movie, and a cunning scheme to rip of an international bank in Kuala Lumpur on the eve of the millennium (the film opens 15 days before the Millennium) which provides the climactic finale to the film. Though it becomes apparent that the bank heist is intended to be the highlight of the film, and a complicated job, it occupies a small amount of screen time. Moreover, Mac and Gin only have less than 24 hours to read a bunch of detailed schematics of the world's tallest building, learn about all the security systems and plan their robbery, and spend half of that time trying to double-cross each other.
What is even more odd is the amount of time spent avoiding the alarm laser beams which intersect the exhibition room. This means that Gin, is a rather fetching, skin-tight costume, must perform an intricate routine (almost like a ballet) to squeeze between the beams. While it is great to look at (and, I suspect, the actual reason for the scene) it accomplishes very little, since the guard arrives about 10 seconds after they take the mask, and sounds the alarm. A smash and grab would have achieved the same result. The bank heist isn't much better, and degenerates into a very routine chase.
Since Sean Connery is almost seventy years of age, and Miss Jones is a mere slip of a girl at 29, it was always going to be a bit difficult to convince the audience that there can be a plausible romance between the two. In fact, you would find more evidence of chemistry (organic or otherwise) on the Moon. If anything, their relationship comes across as more father-daughter, which is probably even less palatable than a straightforward romance. Moreover, the Gin character acts more like a teenager than would-be master criminal, and most of the plotting and attempted double dealing is either incomprehensible or just silly.
It is possible to make an enjoyable movie with the sort of raw material available in Entrapment. After all, Brian DePalma managed such a feat with Mission:Impossible (1996). Jon Amiel not so much directs as just points in the general direction, in the vague hope that the film finds its own way. It doesn't. Ving Rhames is sadly underused (and just about repeats his Mission:Impossible role), Will Patton doesn't have much to do either, and Maury Chaykin performance as criminal art collector Conrad Greene is excruciating. Connery himself looks tired throughout the film, as if perhaps he has finally realised that he's getting a bit old for this sort of nonsense. It's not that Entrapment is a very bad movie, just a very indifferent one. For a thriller, that's not much of a recommendation, though.
(c) Stockholm Film Review
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