FLAWLESS: DVD

SYNOPSIS:
In 1960 London, Mr Hobbs (Michael Caine) the well informed and enterprising office cleaner at the London Diamond Corporation who is due for retirement, invites the frequently overlooked Oxford educated American executive Laura Quinn (Demi Moore) to help him steal a handful of diamonds from their employer. Quinn, resentful of her treatment, Milton K. Ashtoncroft (Joss Ackland) agrees. But when the robbery is discovered, there is much, much more missing than the plan with Hobbs had involved. Laura Quinn is aghast and the insurance company brings in its chief investigator Finch (Lambert Wilson).

Review by Andrew L. Urban:
Director Michael Radford has a track record of solid drama, with outstanding films like Nineteen Eighty Four, the multi awarded Il Postino and White Mischief. On the latter he worked with South African actor Joss Ackland to good effect, and is reunited here for equally good work, with Ackland playing the ageing boss of the big London Diamond Corporation. But then Radford does cast well: Demi Moore is excellent as the catalyst for the crime caper with a profoundly personal motive, something we don't discover until late in the film, and Michael Caine is wonderfully dry as the office cleaner with an agenda.

Lambert Wilson delivers a steely insurance investigator who is smarter than we think - and probably nicer. Radford's direction ensures that this rather good story is told the best possible way. There is nothing unorthodox in the way he structures and reveals the elements, but that's just what this sort of story needs.

Economical but informative, the screenplay creates plenty of intrigue and the heist itself is both exciting and surprising.

The era is evoked immediately by the use of Take Five, the enormously successful jazz tune of the era from Dave Brubeck, and imaginative use of locations and interiors give us a good sense of time and place. Entertaining and enjoyable, Flawless is a little gem ...

Published October 30, 2008