ENTRAPMENT (37)

Directed by: Jon Amiel

Starring: Sean Connery, Catherine Zeta Jones, Ving Rhames

The Pitch: An insurance investigator wins the confidence of an art-thief by pretending to be a thief herself ; but who is playing games with whom?...

Theo Sez: Technophilia at its hollowest - all hi-tech sheen, hardly any substance. Thieves don't have plans, they have really cool gadgets ; their pursuers don't have strategies, they have state-of-the-art software ("Once I have it on the computer I can visualise it," says our heroine, speaking for the film-makers). It's going for up-to-the-minute millennial chic but ends up soulless and mechanical, underpopulated and feebly scripted - most of it is just Sean and Catherine trading shop-soiled quips ("I'm a thief ; so sue me"), any sexual tension stymied by the 50-year age gap. Plot-twists take the place of narrative development, cheap surprises aimed at jolting the popcorn-munchers out of their stupor - none of it makes any sense, really (what kind of hare-brained thief plans a multi-billion heist to the last detail yet doesn't bother covering her tracks with a simple phone call? how, come to that, does the final resolution chime with the fact that she approached him?) ; even the robberies, foolproof action scenes in themselves, are gussied up with races against time and security guards coming closer and closer (it's the kind of film where it takes a nail-biting three minutes to get to the treasure but only a quick ten seconds or so to make it back). Not offensive, just a waste of time.