Entrapment
Entrapment
Well hello world I've got idea for a smash hit movie see. What we'll do is take a hot young actress and pair her along side a old crowd puller, then I'll stick them into a cat-burglar/Bonnie and Clyde type of movie. He has the experience, she is the rookie, she needs him because she's got a big job to do, he needs her because he is not as young as he used to be. Pop in a suggestive romance between the two and loads of plot twists. Its a hit baby.
...Or maybe not.
I like the idea. I think it has great potential. Here we could take the class, style and professionalism of Ronin and carefully draw out the characters. We should see their addiction to the job, their mistrust of the world, how the got into the game, were they plan on going and carefully, very carefully draw the relationship between the two. The relationship is the key to the film. The chemistry between the two should drive the film and keep us on a knifes edge between the caper jobs....
That is my idea of a what Entrapment should have been.
Instead, Entrapment fails on almost all of these factors. Firstly Catherine Zeta Jones and Sean Connery are supposed the best cat burglars in the world. But apart from the opening set up, rarely, if ever do we believe this. Its simply the result of a bad script. As a matter of fact never and I mean never did I believe that these two are the best in the business. She walks around all business woman like. Seeming to be concerned more about her looks than a $100 million job. Connery seems bored and has no visible drive to prove to us he is actually that good. I found it crazy that these were not more carefully draw. A result of lazy writing. In my eyes, these people are alone, to be that good they must be obsessed with their job, they must be able to disappear off the planet in 5 minutes flat. Instead of living alone in a "inconspicuous" castle in Britain.
Next, for this film to be good we have to have decent and tricky caper jobs. At least this way we can say, "Yeah, these guys are good. They are professional". Instead the filmmaker takes liberties and thinks that the audience is a lot more stupid than we actually are. For example, at the start of the film, Zeta Jones is examining video footage of the auction of the painting that was stolen in the opening sequence, her reason for examining the tape is because the thief usually comes to the scene of the crime the day or so before, this is standard procedure for her. Then later on in the film Connery and Zeta Jones go to the exhibition of a mask worth $40 million. One hour later they are stealing it. Now, never are they concerned about being spotted by cameras, at least never are they being seen to avoid them. How are they getting away from being spotted?..... Lazy..... Connery walks into a building wearing a workman's outfit. Five minutes later he is wearing a suit and working out of a bag of wrenches. Where did they come from?..... Lazy...... A SWAT team are chasing the two in "the highest building in the world" on the left is a room filled with tear gas on the right is the stairs. The "professional" SWAT team look at gas filled room and say they must be go the other way. Leaving no one to examine the smoke filled room. Are these guys real professionals?... LAZY....LAZY....LAZY.... (I feel like an English teacher I once had). I mean I spent the entire film thinking "COME ON, I KNOW I'M NOT THE MOST INTELLIGENT PERSON IN THE WORLD, BUT PLEASE I'M NOT THAT STUPID". And the problem could have been solved so easily, just a couple of seconds showing us how they outwit the security system. At least one person invloved in the making of this film must have spotted this problem. Please tell me someone tried to rectify this. Tell me that they had to cut the amount of film to be shot because of some natural disaster or because of some lack of money or something. Just please tell me that they tried. Don't tell me that this was the best the could come up with....
Quiet honestly to comment on the acting performances of Zeta Jones and Connery would be unfair. Why? Because no matter who acted in this film the results would be the same. Unless they rewrote the script. Connery looks bored with the whole affair, even though he was one of the producers. He acts out his performance in auto-pilot, he is Sean Connery on the screen not some cat-burglar.
Zeta Jones at least wants to make something out of this but again, I cannot put the blame on her for not liking her performance. Its her bad character which is pathetically drawn. Her character is so wrong. For example, during the last "job" of the film Connery and Zeta Jones have to walk through a series of beams which needs extreme timing. Now, she has planned this job for a long time, this is her only chance to pull this job off and she wants it bad. So, does it make sense for this woman to waltz through the beams? I don't care how well she knows the timing of the beams. She wants this job really badly. Do you think she would begin to jeopardise the job like this? NO, she would not... Bad writing and I declare shenanigans on everyone who let details like this slip by.
And most of all, how out of place is the character of Ving Rhames? It's amazing. This character should not be in this film. He is wrong, so wrong. So cocky and unprofessional. Lose him or rewrite him. GOD
Entrapment is the worst film I have seen this summer. FACT. In my eyes, a film that sets out to be a certain type of film and succeeds is fine, but a film that does not succeed to meet its own requirements is a failure. It is so sad that there are so many great scripts out there that would make greater films than this piece of "doo doo". I AM LEGEND should be made. DOGMA should be released. Just read the script next time people.
ENTRAPMENT IS A BAD FILM
