You're the Man Now Dawg
Entrapment
dir. Jon Amiel, 1999
Seen a couple weeks ago on HBO
I was pretty surprised that I dug this movie, but that probably has more to do with the hour of day when I watched it than anything else. I think for every hour past midnight, expectations are lowered three notches.
The key to my enjoyment of this movie is that cops and robbers are battling over art. Whenever a heist movie involves art rather than money, its charm gets an immediate boost, especially if there are veteran actors involved. Instead of focusing on anything of real value, an art heist movie's elaborate thievery is set up as a means to cure billionaire boredom. I haven't seen any of the Oceans movies, but I imagine their appeal is similar to this smooth ride. Everyone's just out for a stroll, having a good time, dodging lasers, glorifying larceny. Adding to the movie's good nature is the ridiculous countdown-to-the-millenium plot that somehow involves priceless gold masks, the banks of Southeast Asia, and a Buddha man who sells night vision style goggles. In 1999 some people were genuinely freaked out about the millenium bug's capability to bring down civilization. The rest of us knew that it was put to better use in action movies.
However, this is an anonymous studio flick, so the movie's slickness never lets the action get too crazy-fun. I suppose nobody involved wanted to see Sean Connery naked much, so the audience is spared any lame tacked-on romantic tension (there is a sort of romantic getaway at the end, but it could also just be seen as a gesture between two friends). But the filmmakers couldn't just let Catherine Zeta-Jones' derriere go to waste, so there's several semi-erotic scenes cut to soft jazz full of several in-scene dissolves that made me think I was watching something else on HBO several hours after midnight. If the movie had let itself go a little bit more, it might be something worth really watching. Alas, it is resigned to the watchable, forgettable bin, destined to be watched primarily on TBS.
(It occurred to me that this was the movie where Catherine Zeta-Jones made her name. Of course The Mask of Zorro was the movie that established her, but Entrapment was the first movie that she anchored as a box office power. Not that it's very interesting. But I've always been interested in what movies broke which star.)
dir. Jon Amiel, 1999
Seen a couple weeks ago on HBO
I was pretty surprised that I dug this movie, but that probably has more to do with the hour of day when I watched it than anything else. I think for every hour past midnight, expectations are lowered three notches.
The key to my enjoyment of this movie is that cops and robbers are battling over art. Whenever a heist movie involves art rather than money, its charm gets an immediate boost, especially if there are veteran actors involved. Instead of focusing on anything of real value, an art heist movie's elaborate thievery is set up as a means to cure billionaire boredom. I haven't seen any of the Oceans movies, but I imagine their appeal is similar to this smooth ride. Everyone's just out for a stroll, having a good time, dodging lasers, glorifying larceny. Adding to the movie's good nature is the ridiculous countdown-to-the-millenium plot that somehow involves priceless gold masks, the banks of Southeast Asia, and a Buddha man who sells night vision style goggles. In 1999 some people were genuinely freaked out about the millenium bug's capability to bring down civilization. The rest of us knew that it was put to better use in action movies.
However, this is an anonymous studio flick, so the movie's slickness never lets the action get too crazy-fun. I suppose nobody involved wanted to see Sean Connery naked much, so the audience is spared any lame tacked-on romantic tension (there is a sort of romantic getaway at the end, but it could also just be seen as a gesture between two friends). But the filmmakers couldn't just let Catherine Zeta-Jones' derriere go to waste, so there's several semi-erotic scenes cut to soft jazz full of several in-scene dissolves that made me think I was watching something else on HBO several hours after midnight. If the movie had let itself go a little bit more, it might be something worth really watching. Alas, it is resigned to the watchable, forgettable bin, destined to be watched primarily on TBS.
(It occurred to me that this was the movie where Catherine Zeta-Jones made her name. Of course The Mask of Zorro was the movie that established her, but Entrapment was the first movie that she anchored as a box office power. Not that it's very interesting. But I've always been interested in what movies broke which star.)
posted by Jesse @ 11:13 PM
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