Preview
FOOLPROOF
Starring Kristin Booth, Joris Jarsky and Ryan Reynolds
Written and directed by William Phillips
Opens Friday, October 3
Check listings
There are two kinds of films that star pseudo-celebrity types and are given little or no marketing prior to their late September release – uninspired Hollywood tripe being dumped by its studio in the down-time between the summer blockbuster season and the fall Oscar rush, and low-budget Canadian thrillers.
The former was my assumption with regards to the new film Foolproof. While I did manage to stumble, quite by accident, across a trailer for it (in which Ryan Reynolds dangles precariously in an elevator shaft, nicely accessorized by a clinging blonde), this did little to quell my suspicions.
As I sat in the theatre with my expectations on the floor, a ray of patriotic hope presented itself to me in the form of the opening credits. Foolproof was written and directed by William Phillips, produced by Atom Egoyan, and stars Kristin Booth, Joris Jarsky and Ryan Reynolds – this was actually a Canadian film disguised as a bad American film.
William Phillips’s followup to Treed Murra, is a strong departure in theme and tone from his debut film, but still manages to showcase his talent for crafting engaging stories where believable characters are placed in precarious situations.
This story follows Kevin, Sam and Rob (Reynolds, Booth and Jarsky respectively), three working professionals who get their kicks from devising, researching and testing foolproof plans to breach some of the city’s tightest security systems – without actually following through with them. Everything is suddenly turned upside down for the trio when their plans for a jewelry-store heist are stolen by Leo (David Suchet), a local thug with a reputation for all things criminal. Leo commits the foolproof robbery and then uses the plans to blackmail the three into planning and committing a much larger heist for him.
The sarcastic, self-assured Reynolds does his job well as the likable, levelheaded Kevin, while Phillips avoids the temptation of contriving sensationalized, improbable scenarios – opting instead to intrigue us with toned-down, plausible situations. We see the obstacles they are faced with, we see how they plan to overcome them, we see that it’s plausible and it’s exciting.
Where the film did let me down was in its use of a tired convention that is used in every other film involving a high profile-heist. I had high hopes that Foolproof would do away with those damn laser beams! Why can my grandmother secure her bungalow with state-of-the-art motion detectors, while the world’s largest financial institutions insist on using those little beams of light? Everybody knows all you need is a really hot girl in really tight clothes to erotically manoeuvre her way around them. |
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