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.

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.

I loved this movie.

Foolproof is a pretty intelligent caper film that rises above standard caper/action movies that you get from, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Acting: It was very good, but the acting from Ryan Reynolds was great. I found his delivery perfect for the role.

Script: The script was fairly intelligent but fell into a few standard-caper-script holes in a few spots. Overall the script maintained its character through the interpersonal banter, particularly with Reynolds.

Soundtrack: Excellent. Perhaps the greatest complement to an intelligent movie is a groovy soundtrack that helps keep the momentum of the film going. This soundtrack is groovy. Think Ocean's Eleven with George Clooney.

Plausibility: Well, here we have problems. Don't think this is realistic, just be thankful you don't have Arnie flying a Harrier jet. Hey, it's as plausible as Ocean's Eleven.

Overall, I really enjoyed this movie, and I would happily recommend it to almost anyone.

8/10

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.

Finally, a heist movie that doesn't have any noticeable plot holes, intriguing concept, and for Canadian viewers, doesn't attempt to hide a major Canadian city as somewhere in America.

Normally, I'm put off by action movies because of the plot holes and repetitiveness of so many of them. So "Foolproof" came as a pleasant treat- there is a MAJOR twist in the plot that you will just have to watch for yourself.

Watching "Foolproof" was like reading a nice mystery novel on a winter afternoon, (as it happens, I saw this movie on a snowy afternoon!)

If this is the future of Canadian film, more please!