20th Century Fox, Rated PG-13
Directed by Jon Amiel
Written by Ronald Bass and Michael Hertzberg

There's something great about the crime caper movies of the '60s and '70s. Perhaps it's the intricacies of planning out the big heist, the inevitable chemistry between the leads or the soft focus cinematography. Whatever it is, Entrapment was hoping to revive this genre in a big way and succeeds in many instances. But, ah, the plot. Something about an insurance investigator going after a world renowned jewelry thief. It's almost glossed over for five minutes or so and off we go. Gin (Catherine Zeta-Jones), the insurance investigator meets up with Robert MacDougal (Sean Connery), the thief and they form an all-too-quick partnership. The training and pulling off of the "big heist" is interesting indeed. In fact, the movie's two main acts are probably the most clearly distinguished acts I have ever seen in a movie, separating one heist from a bigger heist. The second one is mostly intriguing and exciting but everything in the middle is mostly predictable and uninteresting. Who's betraying who and when? It all gets hard to tell after a while. Connery and Zeta-Jones have an inkling of chemistry, even though he is old enough to be her grandfather. MacDougal swears to keep it a business relationship so the tension between them is mostly believable. The two leads most certainly have screen presence and there are scenes where it really works so the result overall is spectacularly mediocre. ** 1/2