Movie

Entrapment (1999)

One of many late 1990s films to use the “Millennium Bug” as a plot device, this is a slick heist thriller with great performances from the two leads. Entrapment is notable for being one of Sean Connery’s last film roles. His only major features after this were Finding Forrester and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Plus, there’s that bendy laser-dodging sequence with Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Oddly, the infamous set piece – the theft of a gold mask as a payoff for an even bigger score – occurs at the film’s midpoint rather than the climax. The action-packed climax is set in Kuala Lumpur on New Year’s Eve. The target? A whopping $8 billion from a banking terminal in the iconic Petronas Towers.

For the benefit of younger readers, the Millennium Bug was a computer flaw where date years were stored as two digits. This would have caused issues come 2000 with 00 interpreted as 1900. In the end, the glitch was resolved with no major consequences, so the panic seems silly in hindsight.

Entrapment has one of the cleverest film usages: an integrity test of electronic banking systems. A plausible occurrence in real life, although they probably didn’t run them at the last second.

Villainess

Gin (Catherine Zeta-Jones)

Virginia Baker (Gin for short) is an insurance investigator from New York. She’s after aging professional thief Robert “Mac” MacDougal (Connery). He’s suspected of stealing a Rembrandt, a daring office skyscraper heist that involved a remote controlled winch, and Gin is determined to get her man.

The Thomas Crown Affair setup is inverted when Gin reveals she stole the painting and needs Mac’s help for a job. He’s not impressed, which might have something to do with her overconfident ego. She has a habit of declaring an outcome “perfect” being messing up. Gin wastes no time in using her feminine charms on the much older Mac. He admires her form during a training montage scene, as she bends sexily between ropes substituting for lasers.

Many film critics criticised the “implausible” romantic relationship. But it’s about Gin’s thieving ability (Mac sees his younger self in her), and not simply her beauty. The old-timer desires to return to daredevil heists, and the initial deceptive flirting develops into genuine affection.

After Gin dodges lasers for real and steals the golden mask from Bedford Palace, things get tense when Mac accuses her of setting him up. Until she lets him in on her grand plan. Suspense builds well, with various side characters up to no good (notably Gin’s boss and a shadowy acquaintance of Mac’s).

The Malaysian heist is disappointing at first. The thieves crack a high-security vault that requires less effort than stealing the mask (or even the Rembrandt). But then Gin says “perfect” – just before she triggers a system integrity alarm. A dramatic escape follows, with the thieves swinging from lights under the sky bridge and sprinting through tear gas.

Gin and Mac separate and promise to meet at a train station. It’s then that the old man reveals he’s been playing her all this time, though he reconsiders and helps her escape. After they outwit the authorities, the lovers embrace in a surprisingly moving moment.

Honourable Mentions: Cat Burglars

B.L. Stryker: Grand Theft Hotel (1990) – Dawn St. Claire (Loni Anderson)

This is technically an episode of the B.L. Stryker TV series, with Burt Reynolds in the title role. But since the runtime is ninety minutes, and this aired as a TV movie in the UK, it meets the inclusion criteria.

Buddy Lee is after a cat burglar with a penchant for stun guns and dramatic helicopter escapes. No surprise the masked thief ends up being female (don’t they always?), but her all-black outfit is impressive. Loni Anderson’s role as beautiful socialite Dawn St. Claire seems superfluous, so most viewers will peg her as the villain. For the middle act, she’s demoted to the sidelines while Stryker pursues other leads.

Unfortunately, we don’t get an unmasking reveal, or another robbery with Dawn in her masked outfit. A black-clad thief shoots a guard, but that’s a male copycat. The final heist takes the whole movie to happen, and then Dawn shows up unmasked to steal a jewelled necklace. She triggers the fire alarm to evacuate the hotel, but what self-respecting cat burglar would risk showing her face?

Return of the Pink Panther (1975) – Lady Claudine Litton (Catherine Schell)

Also, the return of Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau after a long break (his last movie was A Shot in the Dark way back in 1964). The infamous pink diamond is the target of a dramatic heist following the cartoony credits. In an impressive – and inventive – robbery scene for the era, a black-clad thief uses a crossbow, rope and lubricant to evade laser beams and guards.

The prime suspect is Charles Litton, aka The Phantom, with Christopher Plummer taking on the David Niven role from The Pink Panther (1963). Most scenes are played for laughs (this is a comedy, after all). Subplots include Clouseau’s boss Dreyfus descending into homicidal mania and the innocent Charles trying to figure out who set him up.

His wife stole the jewel, though a male stunt double was probably used to film the thief’s zipline getaway. The scheming Claudine has several encounters with the clueless detective and can’t contain her laughter, but her post-reveal role isn’t that memorable.

The Real McCoy (1993) – Karen McCoy (Kim Basinger)

Yet another example where the thief is masked at the beginning and never again. That’s four examples on this page alone (yes, it happens in Entrapment with the Rembrandt theft). Some advice for filmmakers: cat burglars are supposed to wear masks during robberies.

The Real McCoy has a villainess protagonist, though Karen is arguably an anti-heroine as she’s coerced into planning a heist by a crime boss. When threatening her doesn’t work, the bad guy takes her son hostage as leverage. So Karen teams up with an inept thief (Val Kilmer) to turn the tables.

Basinger plays the mother/criminal mix well, and there’s plenty of minor heist action before the big vault raid. Karen breaks into the villain’s mansion to rescue her son, but seasoned viewers won’t expect her to succeed. Lack of tension is a recurring problem, even with the bank heist finale. Nothing goes wrong, and Karen outsmarts the villains too easily.