Entrapment (film)

Entrapment
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Jon Amiel
Written by	Story Ronald Bass Michael Hertzberg Screenplay Ronald Bass William Broyles Jr.
Produced by	Sean Connery Michael Hertzberg Rhonda Tollefson
Starring	Sean Connery Catherine Zeta-Jones
Cinematography	Phil Meheux
Edited by	Terry Rawlings
Music by	Christopher Young
Production company	Regency Enterprises
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	April 30, 1999 (1999-04-30) (United States) May 27, 1999 (1999-05-27) (Germany) July 2, 1999 (1999-07-02) (United Kingdom)
Running time	113 minutes
Countries	United States United Kingdom Germany
Language	English
Budget	$66 million
Box office	$212,404,396

Entrapment is a 1999 American caper film directed by Jon Amiel and starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Plot summary

Virginia "Gin" Baker (Zeta-Jones) is an investigator for Waverly Insurance. Robert "Mac" MacDougal (Connery) is an international art thief. A priceless Rembrandt painting is stolen from an office one night. Gin is sent to investigate Mac as the chief suspect. She tries to entrap him with a proposition, claiming that she is a thief herself. She promises that she will help him steal a priceless Chinese mask from the well-guarded Bedford Palace. They travel to Scotland and plan the complicated theft at Mac's hideout: an isolated castle. While Mac is busy making final preparations, Gin contacts her boss, Hector Cruz (Will Patton), and informs him of Mac's whereabouts. Little does she know that the island is bugged, allowing Mac to eavesdrop on their conversation.

After they complete the theft, Mac accuses Gin of planning to sell the mask to a buyer in Kuala Lumpur and then turn him in. Gin convinces him that her insurance agency job is a cover, and that she has planned an even bigger heist in Kuala Lumpur: $8 billion from the International Clearance Bank in the Petronas Towers. After having orchestrated the theft to take place in the final seconds of the new millennium countdown, Gin and Mac escape via hanging Christmas lights and get to a ventilation shaft. Gin lost her parachute in the escape, so Mac gives her his. He tells her to meet him the next morning at the Pudu train station.

Gin arrives at the station waiting for Mac. He shows up late with Cruz and the FBI. He explains that the FBI has been looking for her for some time. When he was caught, Mac made a deal to help the agency arrest Gin. However, the aging thief has another plan: to let her go. Mac slips Gin a gun and she holds Mac hostage, threatening to shoot him if the agents follow her. She boards a train and the FBI heads to the next station. Gin jumps trains mid-station and arrives back at Pudu. She tells Mac that she needs him for another job and they both board a train.

Filming locations

Filming locations for the film include:

• Blenheim Palace
• Savoy Hotel London
• Lloyd's of London
• Borough Market, London
• Duart Castle on the Isle of Mull in Scotland
• The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur (with other filming completed at Pinewood Studios)
• The Bukit Jalil LRT station However, the signage at this station that was used for the movie was Pudu LRT station instead of Bukit Jalil.

Critical reaction

Duart Castle, the location of MacDougal's hideout.

The Petronas Twin Towers, where the final heist took place.

Bukit Jalil LRT station on the Ampang line, where the final scene took place. The signs were changed to read Pudu LRT station.

The film opened to mixed or average reviews as described by Metacritic. Rotten Tomatoes lists the film as receiving only 38% positive reviews. Critics focused on a scene where Zeta-Jones worms around a net of laser beams. The camera lingers on her buttocks through much of the scene.

[[File:Entrapment Gin posterior.jpg|left|thumb|The film's most famous scene, with the camera aimed at her buttocks most of the time.]

Another similar scene takes place when she is actually worming around the real laser beams to steal the mask, including some close-ups of her buttocks. The videos of this scene have been viewed much on YouTube, with some of them having her move in slow-motion and going backwards.

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." The laser scene was choreographed by Paul Harris, who also choreographed the wand-to-wand combat sequences in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Other critics such as The New York Times, New York Magazine, the Chicago Sun-Times, Variety, and Desson Howe/Thomson of the Washington Post praised the film.

The film was a box office success, grossing over $87 million in the US.

The film was screened out of competition at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival.

Malaysian reaction

Complaints arose that the movie depicted Malaysia as a backwards country. The controversy arose from one scene in particular, where a shanty town in Malacca was superimposed over a tilt shot of the then recently constructed Petronas Twin Towers.

External links

• Official site
• Entrapment at IMDb
• Entrapment at Box Office Mojo
• Entrapment at AllMovie