Entrapment

Let's state what's wrong with this film as quickly as possible, so I don't have to think about it anymore. I came into this film with high hopes; indeed, I had assumed its status as an enjoyable two hours' diversion solely based on the cast list--Sean Connery, Ving Rhames Catherine [drool] Zeta-Jones--and the fact that from the previews it seemed to be about deception and thievery and other bad things. I came out of this film turning to my co-watcher (the always-estimable Robert Kahn) and saying "What the hell was that?" To attempt to put words to it:

• It's not really an action movie, but a love story. Catherine Zeta-Jones hunts down Sean Connery, big stud thief, because she wants a boyfriend. Meanwhile, Sean Connery can't have a girlfriend at all, for some reason the film never tells us, and only shows Connery looking with regret and sadness when Zeta-Jones tenses her rear end to pass underneath the laser beam all three times it happens. Like he's the butler in "The Remains of the Day" or something. This is dispiriting, and besides which, it is *not fun.* Now, I have this sneaking suspicion that the film is supposed to be about Zeta-Jones breaking down Connery's barriers to intimacy, while stealing art treasures and 8 billion dollars. Clues to this would be the downright autumnal music playing while Zeta-Jones is being ludicrously attractive while evading said laser beams, which is not the music one normally associates with this kind of activity, the numerous depictions of Connery's character as out of touch with the real world and especially chicks, and of course the aforementioned refusal of James Freaking Bond to have a go at a woman as attractive as any Bond villainess. This is quite a novel idea, despite its unexpectedness, and one which at certain points in the movie I was making a run at appreciating except that
• As a love story, this doesn't play very well. The key here is the puppydog attitude that Zeta-Jones is forced by the script to take towards Connery. Why is she is love? Because she's desperately lonely, the viewer is told, but this woman could turn heads at a blind men's convention. Because of respect growing out of their professional relationship? But she's in love from the beginning of the movie. Zeta-Jones's character has no motivation and is too damn good-looking to throw herself at someone who doesn't want her. Meanwhile, Connery is a total cipher; because his intimacy issues are never resolved in any kind of meaningful way, we know jack diddley about him. So by the end of the movie, we are still wondering why these people are trying to get together, even though they certainly prove their devotion to each other by dodging gunfire and splitting loot. Because the love story was not doing anything at all, I turned to the action level of the movie, and found that
• This movie also lacks any kind of consistent tension. There are innumerable tense moments in this film, which exist only as moments and not as a part of a coherent arc towards a moment of incredible tension towards the end of the movie. Perhaps this is because almost all of them are surrounded by dead seconds during which the director seems to have forgotten to turn the camera off. This, in its turn, makes the movie insanely long, something on the order of two hours and twenty minutes. The cumulative effect is such that by the end of the movie, when they were finally stringing something together, Robert had been so lulled that he was actually yawning, and my brain was barely awake (although it revived itself enough to enjoy the climax).

So here we have a movie that has its love-story side and its action side, and fails miserably at both. On the other hand, Catherine Zeta-Jones is onscreen for a good 99% of the running time, and both Robert and I felt that this was a major reason to see any movie. Sean Connery still has that air about him, sometimes, when it's not being forcibly stifled. But the rest of the characters are stock and forgettable. On the plus side, there is some cool gadgetry and the ending is pretty exciting. Still and all, I was hoping for much more. The fact remains that the best scene in this movie is when Catherine Zeta-Jones slides her incredible rear under that laser beam.

So what kind of grade do you give that?

Attractive Man Count: 2.

Attractive Woman Count: Double for Zeta-Jones, so it's a 2.

Overall Grade: C-. You give it the lowest possible C, of course.

Say it out loud Lindemann

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