Entrapment (film)
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| Entrapment | |
|---|---|
 Entrapment movie poster |
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| Directed by | Jon Amiel |
| Produced by | Sean Connery Michael Hertzberg Rhonda Tollefson |
| Written by | Ronald Bass Michael Hertzberg William Broyles Jr. |
| Starring | Sean Connery Catherine Zeta-Jones Will Patton Maury Chaykin and Ving Rhames |
| Music by | Christopher Young |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | April 30, 1999 (USA) |
| Running time | 113 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $66,000,000 US (est.) |
| IMDb profile | |
Entrapment (1999) is an American film directed by Jon Amiel, and starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
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[edit] Plot summary
Virginia 'Gin' Baker (Zeta-Jones) works for an insurance firm, attempting to capture the legendary art thief Robert MacDougal (Connery) by making him believe that she is a thief herself, thus entrapping him. Unbeknownst to Baker's employers, however, she is in reality a master thief herself who hopes to enlist MacDougal's help in pulling off the 'Crime of the Millennium'.
The viewers get their first hint of the upcoming plot twist when MacDougal denies entrapping Baker, telling her, "No, actually it's called blackmail; entrapment is what cops do to thieves."
[edit] Filming locations
Filming locations for the film include:
- Blenheim Palace, Savoy Hotel, London,
- Lloyd's of London,
- Duart Castle on the Isle of Mull in Scotland,
- The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia,
- Near the end, where Baker is waiting for MacDougal at a train station, supposedly the Pudu station. The sign says it is, but it was filmed at the Bukit Jalil stop.
[edit] Critical reaction
The film opened to poor reviews [1]. Many of the critics noted that the film seemed centered around a scene where Zeta-Jones worms around a net of laser beams. The camera lingers on her derrière through much of the scene. Critic Scott Weinberg said "OK, if you own a TV then you've seen that scene. You know the one. It's when Catherine Zeta-Jones squirms her beautiful rear down onto the floor to avoid a laser alarm system. It's shown on the commercial, the preview and in the movie itself like 7 times. The challenge is this: Build a movie around it." [2]
Despite the poor reviews, the film was nonetheless a box office success, grossing over $87 million domestically. Supporters of the film saw it as no more than a lightweight caper film something along the lines of Charade.
[edit] Malaysian reaction
Complaints arose that the movie depicted Malaysia as a backwards country and was misportrayed. The controversy arose from one scene in particular, where a shantytown in Malacca was superimposed over a tilt shot of the then recently constructed Petronas Towers.
[edit] Background
The movie is a rather typical if somewhat creative romance in the tradition of Romeo & Juliet and West Side Story. The most obvious parallel is the falling in love (against their wills) of the crook MacDougal and the investigator Baker--although the plot turns on the twist that neither is what they appear to be: MacDougal is actually "working" for the FBI and Baker is in actuality a thief. This enemies-falling-in-love motif parallels the more famous love stories, where "boy meets girl" is complicated by acrimonious families and warring gangs.
Other oppositions/contrasts in the two main characters are: Scottish vs. American citizenship, European vs. Asian ethnicity, nobility vs. commoner, wealthy vs. middle-class, old vs. young (he's 60 and she is 25), old knowledge vs. current expertise, class vs. bravado, openness vs. deception (although the plot twist shows that MacDougal is actually the more successfully deceptive), maturity and stability vs. passion, professionally dispassionate vs. blatantly seductive, etc.
Even the overtones of the musical score are designed to subtly remind us of the more famous predecessors.
