Movie Review: Entrapment 2 ½ Stars

It should be refreshing to watch an action caper film that doesn’t rely on a choreographed series of explosions, car chases and extended gun battles to thrill the audience, but rather captivates with unexpected plot twists and whodunnit character development. The masterthief thriller, Entrapment, however, leaves you wanting for explosions, chases and firefight.

In a bold and masterful robbery, a Rembrandt is heisted from a New York City skyscraper and crackerjack insurance investigator Virginia “Gin” Baker (Catherine Zeta-Jones) soon begins to suspect this is the handiwork of Robert “Mac” MacDougal, art thief extrordinaire.

Slipping into a rather accentuating cat suit, Gin infiltrates Mac’s operation, posing as a thief herself, and offers her services as a partner-in-crime. Mac is of course reticent, but foolishly enamored of Gin, and agrees. She proves her mettle pinching a valuable Chinese artifact from a British museum. His trust in her emboldened, Mac lets her in on the bank job of the millennium. At exactly midnight on December 31, 1999, in Kuala Lumpur, the security safeguards on the computer system of a multinational financial company will be breached for a brief second as a Y2K-compliant program is initiated.

What follows is supposed to shake our faith in Gin -- has she been wooed by the Dark Side? Is she falling in love with Mac? And we’re supposed to be on the edge of our seats as the two weeks to prepare for the heist becomes one week…three days…one day, etc.

Unfortunately, none of that happens. Instead we’re left to ponder how comfortable Catherine Zeta-Jones’ leotard can really be and where she learned gymnastics and why she’s attracted to my grandpa.