"Flawless" ***

Tuesday March 25, 2008

I had better luck the next day with the latest vehicle by talented director Michael Radford (2004's "William Shakespeare's The Merchant Of Venice", "1984", and 1995's wonderful "Il Postino") starring Demi Moore and the always interesting Michael Caine. The story details a fictional 1960 diamond heist of Britain's (and the world's) largest Diamond corporation. Caine plays the building janitor (!) with the plan who enlists Moore, who appears to be the only female executive in the corporation. When he overhears that she is about to be fired, he convinces her to go along with his proposal. Although the plan and its aftermath are completely preposterous, your interest is kept humming along as you try and figure out how this 75 year old dude could seemingly empty a vault full of diamonds in minutes without enlisting the aid of David Copperfield. Radford so lovingly recreates a 1960 feel that, at times, I expected Audrey Hepburn to emerge from the shadows. However, a major problem for me was that the film seemed to drag in parts as you eagerly awaited the inevitable outcome (I won't spoil it for you to tell you that the story begins in present day London and is narrated by the "95 year old" Moore). The narrative says a lot about how money affects us all and what ultimately is most important in life.