Remember when Sean Connery did fun movies and Catherine Zeta-Jones was in them? Yeah, those were the days.
Entrapment borrows heavily from Gambit, but with very different results. Connery and Zeta-Jones are thieves (or are they?) working together (or are they?) to first steal a mask from an art museum, and then several billion dollars from a bank in Kuala Lumpur. The first job is pretty much an excuse for Zeta-Jones to show off just how limber she is, but wins points for being elegant and tense. Most of the tension of the film, however, comes from the bait-and-switch that both of the main characters play at: who is entrapping whom and why? This is a heist film in which neither the characters nor the audience are certain of who to trust, or how the various angles are going to work out. The romantic implications are similar to those of Gambit and How To Steal A Million, but here we’re uncertain about the motivations and loyalties of our heroes. It’s perfectly possible that they’re both out to screw each other over.
Enjoyment of Entrapment is heavily predicated on the idea that you actually like the two leads, and like them together. I do. The twists and turns work because the film never dwells on them long enough to make the audience consider them in depth. It is not a film to stand up again too close scrutiny, but has a charm all its own. One of the better contemporary heist pictures.
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