Entrapment Reviewed

ROVIN' AND RAVIN' WITH MIKE

Grumpy Old Man, Cute Young Investigator

Entrapment

Before we get to the business at hand, a bit of pleasure, a movie quiz. Here are four movies, each paired with a number. What is the relationship of each movie to its number. First, two movies from last year: Bulworth, starring Halle Berry and Warren Beatty—31; Six Days, Seven Nights, starring Anne Heche and Harrison Ford—27. Then, this week’s offering, Entrapment—39.

Finally, a film to keep your eyes out for, Wonderland, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, playing an unworldly graduate student who discovers the location of the manuscript of a lost third Alice book by Lewis Carroll, and Susan Sarandon, as a high-octane New York editor determined to make millions from his discovery. While they travel to Ulan-Batur to find the manuscript in an abandoned monastery, they squabble, insult each other… and fall in love. The number associated with this movie is 28.

Now, for another bit of pleasure, Entrapment, directed by Jon Arniel, and starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones (last seen in The Mask of Zorro), a film as cozy and warm as a cat, specifically a cat burglar. It’s a cinematic archetype—just a cliché with a college education—that the cat burglar is the gentleman of thieves, never stooping to violence, using his equally lithe body and mind to steal outrageous treasures that he doesn’t really need. And if, along the way, he steals a heart…. Think of Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief (1955), starring Grace Kelly and Cary Grant. (By the way, the number for To Catch a Thief is 25.) Think of David Niven, too cool and debonair to be intellectual.

There’s nothing new in Entrapment, except enough technological toys to make ex-James-Bond Connery feel at home. But, why fix something that works? And the tried, true, perhaps hackneyed formulas of the cat burglar yarns work, and still work quite well. The plot doesn’t make any sense. Would anyone with any sense get him or herself caught in such an absurd cliff-hanger, uh, bridge-hanger? Does Maury Chaykin have to wear lipstick—and not wear a shirt?

The plot doesn’t make any sense, and there is hardly any characterization. Oh, there are hints, suggestions, but the two main characters, Mack the thief (Connery) and Gin the insurance investigator (Zeta-Jones) are not much more than chess pieces, a high-stepping knight and an inscrutable queen. The minor characters, Gin’s boss (Will Patton) and Mack’s accomplice (Vingt Rhames), are nothing but pawns.

Somehow, the plot gets tangled up in the change of millennia, a twenty-eight million dollar Rembrandt, and a forty-million dollar Chinese mask (small change, compared to the eight billion dollar heist that is the focus of the last half of the film). But, we all know within ten minutes that the plot is really about uniting the two principals. Unite they do, in a love scene that doesn’t cross the line to sex scene.

In fact, there is no sex or murder in this film. Cat burglars play by the rules, you know, and Connery’s Mack knows the rules. There are moments when he comes across as a sort of Henry Higgins of crime. But, then the fun begins. By the time the last star-crossed double-cross is unraveled, you may be cross-eyed trying to keep up with everything that happens. Before you throw your popcorn box away, you’ll be checking to see if a million-dollar computer chip has been glued to the bottom. It happens, you know.

Yeah, only in the movies. But, even if your life doesn’t take such an exciting turn, may you have such an elegant, droll, brainy companion as the couple on screen. This is a great movie for eating popcorn and giving into the moment, to let yourself worry if our thieves get themselves out of their current fix.

Now, to play the numbers. The number I assigned each movie is the number of years of difference in the ages of the male and female leads, who become romantically involved. While this has become a trend lately, it’s nothing new. Think Bacall and Bogey—25. By the way, you can keep looking for Wonderland, the Sarandon/DiCaprio pic, but unless some crazed producer happens to be reading this article, you’ll never see it. We’ll more likely see DiCaprio making a film about a love affair between two men. In fact, he already has: Total Eclipse, with David Thewlis, who is only eleven years older than he.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with finding love almost four decades away, as in the current film. But, if Sean Connery can still play a sexy leading role, at almost seventy, with a woman young enough to be his grand-daughter, why can’t a sharp, beautiful woman like Sarandon play a sexy leading role with a man young enough to be her son?

You’ll find no jokes about Bob Dole’s favorite pharmaceutical here, just in this glorious spring all around us now, gratitude for love wherever it may be lurking, gratitude for movies like this that are simply fun. As Connery’s Mack says to Zeta-Jones’s Gin, "What can you do with eight billion dollars that you can’t do with four?" So, as you plot your latest multi-billion dollar heist this week, keep your feet dry and your heart full of noble thoughts, especially the intention to share a billion or two with your dear old free-net. If you should earmark a few of those ill-gotten bucks for Rovin’ and Ravin’, by the way, you will hear no protests from this direction.