Well...Its about an hour too long and nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is... (Entrapment (DVD))

Member Name: wampyrii

Product:	Entrapment (DVD)
Date:	04/04/02 (27 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Its in the review

Disadvantages: Its in the review as well

3 years after its initial release I finally managed to sit down and watch Entrapment courtesy of the BBC over the Easter weekend period. So far I had managed to miss it at the cinema, rented it twice and never found the time to watch it and missed its satellite showing by being on holiday and it was beginning to bug me! I can’t say it was a movie I was particularly desperate to see in the first place but seeing as I had tried and failed to watch it on at least two occasions I was damn sure I would see it this time.

I can’t say the initial premise filled me with that much glee, but it sounded serviceable enough - I like a good campy caper movie and anything with Sean Connery in it has to be worth a look - if nothing else, Catherine Zeta Jones would make a nice canvas to stare at for the next two hours. The plot for as much as I can recount it before it twists and convulses like an epileptic python and finally chokes to death after swallowing its own tail goes something on the lines of this: Connery is an art thief, a man who has been in the business for a number of years and is at the very top of his trade. He is in his 60s looking a little worse the wear but still able to pull off the most ingenious heists through sheer skill and artistry. Catherine Zeta Jones works for an insurance company and it is her job to entrap him, catch him with his hand in the honey jar and recover some stolen goodies. She approaches him with a plan, a big heist which will net them $50 million dollars to lure him in, but as things progress not only does it appear that Zeta Jones may be plays both ends against the middle, but also that there may be something smouldering in Cupid's codpiece...

For the first 20 minutes Entrapment looks as though it might be a rather entertaining movie - certainly one which isn’t going to win any awards for originality or scripting but one which will at least be entertaining. We see the planning of a heist, a little bant
er between the two leads and a spark of romance and things look rosy. Pretty soon after though we realise that those 20 minutes are to be repeated several times with little else happening other than the plot beginning to unravel as the movie tries to be a little cleverer than its scriptwriters actually are. Entrapment’s major problem for me was that the caper thing is great when its first carried out - we watch them plan, carry it off and snaffle the bounty...then we watch them do it again and its less interesting...then again...and so on. Zeta Jones character develops during this period but little else happens other than repetitive caper scenes. The inordinate amount of time spent in Connery’s castle is incredibly boring and things really don’t hot up until the final 20 minutes. As such I suppose you could say the movie is about an hour too long...not good.

Caper movies need excitement and when they are played as this one is then they need a little flair of romance as well. Interestingly there is very little chemistry between what ought to have been two very charismatic leads here at all. The relationship between Connery and Zeta Jones seems much more like a father-daughter relationship than the supposed smouldering romance we should have been seeing and what it appears the movie was attempting to purvey. I wouldn’t say this was down to the age gap (a considerable one) between the two leads because that shouldn’t matter at all(trust me I know :oP), but simply that there was so very little chemistry there. Connery in fact seems to be on auto-pilot throughout which doesn’t help, he looks and sounds weary of the action movie thing and any thoughts of a romantic tangle with Zeta Jones would be far too much trouble. She on the other hand plays her role as hardly the cunning cat burglar/criminal mastermind that the plot would have you believe at times but as a naive little girl, all sprightly and full of the joys of spring...a
nd with an American accent which sometimes borders on parody. Her role is very contradictory, making it difficult to get into a character who seems to change quite so often...and of course who doesn’t sound right with an over-played American accent.

It would be wrong to lay the blame for this movie’s shortcomings on a lacklustre performance from its two leads though because the biggest failing is the script and the plot itself. The script is very weak indeed, its little wonder that Connery delivers his lies with such a lack of conviction when inwards he was probably rolling his eyes at how crass they were. The plot makes perfect sense up until the mid-way point where it begins to unravel and the ending is as I said, like watching a convulsive python choke on its own tail. There are way too many loose ends, too many scenes which looks nice, but make no sense and too much that we are asked to swallow which frankly doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense. The screenwriters would no doubt like us to think it clever and with multiple twists, but ‘clever’ comes from making all those loose ends tie up - these do not. There are also some other incredibly basic errors which show a lack of thought having gone into the production - one very obvious maths error for example whereby someone somewhere obviously didn’t learn their hours and minutes in infant school because they seem to think there are 100 minutes in an hour! Its a minor point, but it shows a distinct lack of care in the production - which is noticeable elsewhere too.

Enjoyed on a purely braindead level Entrapment will offer up a few interesting moments in the opening say, half hour to be generous, then again in the closing 20 minutes when the real action takes place but you’ll struggle to stay awake in the middle. Certain characters are introduced with no real purpose whatsoever - Zeta Jones’ boss for example is a total waste of airtime, her Malaysia
n contact is another and Connery’s supplier/friend and altogether shady background player Ving Rhames seems totally wasted by his lack of screentime. Maybe Mr. Connery should keep away from action movies now that he’s getting a little on the crumbly side because he doesn’t seem to have any kind of appetite for this role at all. In fact his performance sums up the entire movie nicely - lacklustre, lacking charisma and tired.

Summary: