Cast: Demi Moore, Michael Caine

Director: Michael Radford

Screenplay: Edward A. Anderson

Running time: 1 hr 49 mins

Genre: Drama/Thriller



CRITIQUE:


With the promising, if not eccentric, pairing of Michael Caine and Demi Moore, this heist thriller seems to guarantee electrifying results. Flawless, nevertheless, is anything but. Instead it’s a low-wattage, averagely assembled heist romp that could have been utterly disposable if not for the good, sensible turns from its talented leads. Although not really the career resurgence, Demi Moore brings enough intelligence, refinement and maturity to her Oxford-educated American executive in London circa 1960, where her career opportunities in the renowned (and much fracas-centred) London Diamond Company, or Lon Di, is discriminated just because she’s the only female in the business hierarchy. Feminist undercurrents stream successively, and Moore, just in the right age to portray a middle-age woman-in-crisis, balances weariness and wrinkles with resoluteness, a sharp-suited woman who sees her downfall just beyond the smoke haze of her cigarettes. Caine, meanwhile, plays a much low-key role yet of equal performance power as the company’s janitor. They two obviously do as much as they can with the script they’ve been given – but the flaw in Flawless really lies on its plot and structure. It’s a heist film – you’ll end up sighing rather than dumbstruck by the grand design of the robbery. After all, this is not a comical caper by way of Ocean’s Eleven, there’s plenty of character observations here but it tries to be a serious, dramatic heist-romp with a moral coda afterwards. We just couldn’t help shaking our heads when Moore’s Quinn and Caine’s Hobbs sets a highly-secretive plan to steal a ton-load of diamonds in, of all places, a pub.


VERDICT:

With a clunky plot, lazily structured storyline and an underwhelming finale, Flawless only stays in the right side of watchable, thanks to the pairing of Moore and Caine for bringing depths to their characters.



RATING: B-