Foolproof

While not up to the pace and drama of The Italian Job or Heist,this made for cable epic is redeemed by a nice twist ending.

Kristin Booth as the female lead has charm and presence. Her smile lights up the screen and she looks capable of the part played by her character, with a well muscled build unlike the typical stick woman of Hollywood.

David Suchet, who you may remember as the cop in A Perfect Murder, underplays the villain well though the other leads struggle more with the wooden dialogue.

A diverting way to spend some time. Certainly better than The Score, which wasted a huge budget and big name actors. Here, a modest budget and working talent exceed expectations.

5 June 2005. this no name, no budget mystery caper surprisingly is a solid piece of film-making with an excellent plot twist, taut writing and acting along with a good music track. There is a delightful laid back transition into a more sinister scenario along with a few spicy scenes that never become over the top. Somewhat manipulative in places, but not really more than most mystery thriller genre movies. The characters could have been more refined and restrained in a few places, but overall this a good "see" if one is looking for something exciting when it comes to crime films - a sort of mini Oceans 11 or 12 on a smaller scale without all the big action. Seven out of Ten Stars.

I'll admit it - I only went to see this movie to support the fact that a Canadian movie was playing at my local giant movie-plex - a rarity in these parts. I didn't know all that much about it and I went in thinking that there was a good chance that I was not going to like this movie.

But I was surprised. Although it wasn't the most techno-savvy heist movie with the coolest gadgets and up-to-the-minute technology, it had me entertained. That's not to say that there weren't gadgets and neat props used to pull of the heists - just not a plethora of things like you would see in a huge budget Hollywood movie. The parts in the movie that were supposed to be funny made me laugh and the tense parts had me going.

The setup, a trio of twenty-something friends making a game out of planning the perfect crime without actually any intention of pulling them off, was at least a refreshing start to a caper movie. They are not looking to score diamonds and make it rich - they are satisfied with knowing that they outsmarted the security companies and that they could pull off these jobs if they didn't have morals and a respect for the law (they are just desk-jockies).

I thought that the acting was well-done and the roles were believable. The script was pretty good and at least there wasn't a bunch of cheesy one-liners and awkward dialogue (although I too found that they said "foolproof" more times than warranted).

All in all I would have no problem recommending this to anyone. As long as you don't go into the theatre expecting the smartest, savvy-est, most original heist movie ever to grace the screen, then you'll most likely enjoy it for the 'popcorn movie' that it is.

This is a movie I rented pure on the back cover and because of the trailer. The story after all is interesting; a couple of people pretending to do heists get caught by reality.

With such a plot one takes into account a certain level of disbelief and far fetched events but this movie however takes the level just a bit too far. For example, no time is spent on telling how the characters get their extensive knowledge of almost all high tech alarms and a simple picture is enough for them to crack any system. Furthermore these people.. all very young and only one of them seems to have a job have all the latest gadgets available to them... 007 would envy their setup.

Even if one takes this as part of the popcorn this movie is - which I didn't- there are more disturbing factors.

Like the female lead who is about as convincing as Halle Berry in Catwoman with her "I am gonna kick his ass" attitude. For pure torture rewind the first time she confronts the body guard of the bad guy.. this is so painfully bad it hurts. The bad guy never got caught - at least so is told to us- for someone who never got caught he acts stupid the whole movie , some guys must have a lot of luck. No wonder David Suchet looks embarrassed the whole movie.

The "climax" itself has a nice idea behind it - story of this movie, lots of nice ideas- but the execution makes you shake your head in disbelief. The few twists that are behind it make entrapment a masterpiece.

Actually this whole movie feels like an under budget TV pilot. If this is the best Canada has to offer mainstream nowadays I even start to think about re-watching 21 jump street.

This film is even lower as the nobrainer it is made to be, it doesn't show any respect for its audience and takes itself far too serious. If you have anything better to do with your life.. watching paint dry.. clip your toenails please do it and avoid this stinker.

Foolproof was the largest domestic opening for a Canadian film. Roughly 2 million in prints and advertising was wasted on what was a truly an abysmal caper film. I was hoping for it to do well, felt the need to cheer for the cinematic home team but after seeing it I tried to understand why so much money was sunk into a film without a chance. AT the heart of the story lies a trio of friends led by the talented Canadian export Ryan Reynolds. They stage "foolproof" capers as a fun thing to do as friends. This was the first script obstacle which was terribly wonky and hard to get over but we move on. Enter bad guy, played with the stereotypical menace by David Souchet, another good actor whose talents were wasted by the director. What ensues is a ridiculous story which is so poorly written that the film can't possibly survive it's own running time. It tries to be a high impact crime caper full of twists and turns. The problem is that like many great caper films, the script has to be airtight. This script was no where near production ready. Another problem is that Foolproof didn't have the budget that caper films require in order to be successful. They blew their load on one or two scenes and the rest of the film looks like a TV movie. It's sad that this film died such a public death. It makes it so much harder for other Canadian films to get out there. While I admire the risk taken on Foolproof's domestic release, I'm saddened that they blew a bunch of cash releasing a mediocre film, that never had a chance.