Entrapment - DVD > Reviews > Rat's Ass In A Trap

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Disliked it
Story	Very ordinary
Characters / Performances	Satisfactory
Special Effects	Standard
Soundtrack	Average

Advantages:	Good transfer and sound
Disadvantages:	Dull extra, mediocre film

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

As Entrapment begins we see an interesting and elaborate heist which involves a masked thief uses modern gadgets to smoothly steal a rembrant painting with the greatest of ease. Needless to say the insurance company aren't to pleased about the theft, employee Virginia Baker (Catherine Zeta Jones) believes the culprit to be an old professional thief Robert MacDougal (Sean Connery). Baker goes undercover to catch MacDougal by posing as a fellow thief and offering him a job he can't refuse. But then the lines are crossed and Virginia may bot be who shes says she is, who can be trusted. Will Robert see through her lies and will he go against the advice of his long time associate Aaron (Ving Rhames). Needless to say it's a game of cat and mouse with an attraction between an older man and a younger women that spans a few different countries.

The problem with Entrapment is that it's a film which thinks it's being incredibly clever when all the time it's not. Formulaic double crossing is the order of the day, yes there's some nice style but that doesn't mean a thing when you have no real substance to back it up. Connery and Jones do suitable jobs and as always Rhames is cool but ultimately wasted. The only things that really work in the film are some of the heists which are nicely orchestrated but lack any real tension.

By the end of the film the maker's pull a kind of Scooby Doo ending that really doesn't work and can be seen a mile away. The reason it doesn't work is because the events that lead up to it don't, the stuff we see on screen. It all doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. You don't know who half the characters are or what their purpose is in the film.

After watching this I just had the feeling that this would have worked so much better if the two leads were actually of a similar age and could stir up more sexual heat. For a better example of how to do this kind of material right you really need to look at the likes of the Clooney/Lopez potboiler Out of Sight.

As for the dvd, well the R2 cover lists this as a special edition. Well if there's something special about it then I'm still looking.

The anamorphic 2.35:1 transfer is very good. It's a clean print with no real signs of grain, blemish etc. Some of the scenes looked a little soft to me but then this could be how they looked originally on theatrical release. Overall a nice job.

The same could be said for the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. It's very nice and lively throughout. One of the things that really struck me was how good Christopher Young's score sounded throughout, it really gave the film a sense of class. The dialogue channel was also clear throughout and there was a nice use of subtle rear speaker action as well with the action scenes bringing the full soundscape to life.

Browsing through the simple animated menus brings you to a selection of extras that really don't deserve to push this disc into the special edition bracket.

First up is a 14-minute 'making of' which is the standard promotional fluff. You get the usual cast/crew talking head interviews editied together with behind the scenes footage and film clips. Of course everyone thinks everybody else on the set is great to work with. It's something you'd watch once and then realize that it was just made to sell the film.

Next is a music video for Seal's 'Lost My Faith', I don't mind Seal's music but this track is slightly bland and a reflection on why you haven't really heard a lot from the artist in recent years. What the video does do is cleverly edit Seal into footage from the film for realistic effect.

Finally you have a trailer for the film and that's your lot. Of course there's a US version of the dvd with a commentary, some deleted scenes and an alternate ending as well. Adding these features to the Region 2 disc may have just pushed it into special edition status.

But then again this is one of those films that is deeply average, deeply disappointing and worth a watch just once