Entrapment (1999, PG-13)

Directed by Jon Amiel

Written by Ronald Bass and William Broyles, Jr.

Starring Sean Connery, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Ving Rhames, and Will Patton.

As Reviewed by James Brundage

Someone find me a cure, I'm obsessed with film. Sure, there's your general movie buff, who digests about a hundred or so films a year. Then there's your true obsessive-compulsive film watcher. He has HBO, Showtime, and a fair sized video collection… and still watches about three hundred films a year. Then you have your movie fanatic. A man who can recite, word for word, the script from a movie you've never heard of, he has all the premium channels, watches edited films on cable, and a fine video collection. Then you have me. In my best year, 1996, I saw 2/3 of the films in national release. I have a video collection of about three hundred EP tapes, plus several tapes I have bought. I have two premium channels that I watch at least three movies on a week and I am steadily building a DVD collection. When there is a sneak preview, I will be there. When I can get videos for reduced cost or for free, I will get them. Like Candance Bushnell is reputed to buy shoes, I buy movies.

So, when the chance presented itself to see Entrapment early, how could I resist? I was willing to travel more time than it took me to see a movie, end up back home at about 11:00, and get my first fix of seeing a sneak preview in about a year and a half.

Seeing it, I remembered how refreshing sneak previews are. I remembered why I started going to them in the first place (aside from my neurotic need to see a movie before anyone else does)… people cheered.

This may have been the general air of the screener, one of excitement as fairly ordinary people's days are lit up by seeing a movie before it comes out. Of the prizes won, the prizes lost, but, you know what, I’m willing to think that it was the movie that made people cheer.

Entrapment is not really anything new to the world of crime fiction… as far as books are concerned. In books, we see capers so well planned that you can’t help but love them. Entrapment, however, is the first movie I’ve seen with exceptionally planned robberies, ones that go above and beyond the norm of the break in and do the job antics that populate Hollywood. It goes beyond nicely plotted, it goes beyond nicely planned. Both are cinematic aspects planned to a T.

The story is basically one of love among thieves. Sean Connery is a crack jewel thief (the best in the world, of course Monty Penny) who is being chased by Gin Baker, a woman working for an insurance company (at a desk). As they are brought together by a high profile heist of a Rembrant, the two begin to develop a strange love-hate relationship. Connery and Gin, begin to plot to get an ancient Chinese mask worth $40 million… with an even better heist planned after that.

I’d love to tell you more, but part of the fun of Entrapment (besides pulse-pounding action, and the sex appeal of Catherine Zeta-Jones for men and Sean Connery for women) is not knowing for sure what’s going to happen next. Yeah, you know everything will turn out honky-dory, and you know that they’ll make it through their heists, but you don’t quite know what’s coming. You have general ideas, but they won’t help you that much.

Unlike Jon Amiel’s previous film, Copycat, Entrapment does not have more plot holes than stones in a graveyard… he learned from his mistakes and used some spackle to cover what could be some potentially irreconcilable damages to the plot. It takes care to answer every how, why, when, and what.

In fact, on this film almost everybody does their jobs. Sean Connery shows the same off-kilter charm he showed with every one of the James Bond films. Catherine Zeta-Jones is always able to look as good as she acts, and Ving Rhames is able to show off the basic street charm that’s made him famous. Will Patton plays as good (or bad) of a jerk as he always has. The cinematographer does his job by throwing in some very impressive shots. The writers do their jobs by making an action movie a critic can enjoy.

Yes, as always, I’m not going to completely laud the film. I have my stupid gripe, and for Entrapment it would have to be that Catherine Zeta-Jones can’t keep her voice steady for the first half of the picture. It gives you the sense that she was basically like "Yes, I’m acting with Sean Connery, now let me act like a ditz!" Not to say she did a bad job… she didn’t, but either her or the mike operators screwed up.

Well, that’s about all I can tell you, except that with Entrapment, the best thing to do is sit back, relax, and let Entrapment trap you.