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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 7, 1999)
0000000000000000000000000000 g Euphoria Chocolates | for Mother's Day. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 | 0 It's your turn to deliver! CHOCOLATE comV4 17th and Willamette 5th and Pearl Valley River Center Bertelsen and Stewart To earn a 4.00 in Brewology all you need to know is STEELHEAD. □ 9 Award Winning Micro-Brews □ Soups, Salads □ Ribs □ Fresh Pizza □ Sandwiches □ Pastas □ Burgers □ Spirits □ Home Made Rootbeer TAKE A BREW HOME IN STEELHEAD'S BOX O BEER Steelhead Brewing Company 199 Cast 5th Avenue Eugene, OR Phone 686-2739 Eugene, OR, - Burlingame, (A * fishermans Wharf, San fiancisro, (A, * Irvine, (A Jot a story idea?. J ivo us u c a Emerald 346-5511 Courtesy photo Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones execute their ingenious plan in the high-tech action flick ‘Entrapment.’ Connery film will ensnare you f f ‘Entrapment’ adds a TWIST OF ROMANCE TO THE ACTION FORMULA By Matt Partney lor The Emerald F ast cars, high-tech gadgetry, exotic locations and beauti ful women — sounds like a lames Bond film, but it is The film is “Entrapment,” a high-tech action film with a ro mantic twist. The movie is cen tered around the struggle for trust between two audacious partners in a situation where trust is most important. Age-defying Sean Connery plays Robert “Mac” MacDou gal, a suave professional art thief who enjoys his golden years looking for the biggest, most challenging heist yet. Mac, like Connery, may not be as agile as he used to be, but his wit, sophistication and charm are still very much in tact. Connery s plate was full, as he also served as one of the films ex ecutive producers. Catherine Zeta-Jones, who set the screen aflame in “The Mask of Zorro,” plays Virginia “Gin” Baker, a loner insurance investi gator with a penchant for art, ac tion and thievery. Together, the two come up with an intrepid plan for a multi billion-dollar heist set conve niently in the dawn of the new millennium. (Yet another film to cash in on this millennium trend that will dominate the screen for the year to come.) All the while, the two secretly attempt to entrap one another at Director: Jon Amiel Starring: Sean Connery, Catherine Zeta*Jones Score: ***** their own game of cat and mouse. Gin reports to her shifty boss, played by Will Patton, who acts more like a jealous boyfriend than anything else. Mac is seemingly caught in a shady association with an enig matic tough guy, Thibadeaux, played by the amusing Ving Rhames. The action and plot of the sto ry are overshadowed by the hard-to-believe love story be tween Gin and Mac — another installment of the old guy/young-woman romance in films recently. (See “Six Days, Seven Nights.”) Zeta-Jones says the on-screen chemistry “can be watched as an old-fashioned romance, even though it’s all below the sur face.” But it often seems con trived. It is hard to believe these two, with three decades separat ing them, are a match made in heaven. Age aside, Gin’s inability to se duce Mac because he “never mixes business with pleasure,” further reduces the believability of the pairing. What’s more, the dynamic between Gin and Mac is more paternal at times than sexu al. Though “Entrapment” prides itself as a character-driven film, it fails to develop these charac ters beyond the ambiguous. This does leave us guessing as to what each character’s mo tives are. On the other hand, suspense at the expense of char acter development does get frus trating. “Entrapment” is set in beauti ful locations spanning from Lon don to the majestic Isles of Scot land to Kuala Lumpur, the exotic capital of Malaysia. If you like gadgets, this is your film. We’re also witness to not just one, but three high-tech thievery scenes. One in particu lar, in which Gin must gymnasti cally elude a laser-laden room, will surely leave you in suspense — to say the least. lhe movie climaxes in Kuala Lumpur at the Petronas Twin Towers, the tallest buildings in the world, connected at the 41st floor by a sky bridge. Of course, Gin and Mac find their way to hang precariously from it, 750 feet above the city’s floor. No doubt about it, “Entrap ment” leaves you charged and guessing until the very end. The score of the movie is a definite plus. It complements both the dramatic and action elements of the film. “Entrapment” has a little something for everyone: all the elements of a great action movie, plus a side of romance, make this film very entertain ing. Unfortunately, the film los es its way when attempting to mold these elements into the better movie it had such poten tial for. But these minor losses are made up for by the screen presence of Zeta-Jones and Con nery.
