Points to make
I enjoyed this film when it first came out. Having watched it just now for the first time in around 15 years, I was given pause on the following points:
- three people are dead (The Russian, his driver, and the cryptography dude), and their murders are unavenged at movie's end. Yes, the bad guys don't get the box, but besides some personal and property damage there are zero repurcussions for their crimes.
- wasn't the plan to put the substitute the original fake answering machine with a FAKE-fake answering machine? They bring this up when going over the motion sensor plan, and it's used at the end to fool the bad guy, but... he was supposed to put it in the case, right? So it looked like they hadn't taken it anywhere. Why didn't he stick to the plan? If he had, no alarms and away scott-free.
- Abbott from the NSA is under no obligation to give Dan Ackroyd a winnebago, just as Laura Roselyn is under no obligation to sleep with Sundance. Light-hearted 90's heist films rely way too much on implied resolutions.
- Laura Roselyn's hair cut is just PAINFUL to look at.
- Why does Cos even HAVE an office if he's just going to hang out with building security all night?
- Is the bad guy building supposed to be a front for something shady? And if so, why do they have a genius actually inventing REAL TOYS in an office next door to the office that serves the REAL purpose? If they get inspected by, I dunno, the Toy Manufacturers Union or something, wouldn't you put your front OUTSIDE the secure area?
- Yes, alarms go off and men with shotguns will appear... and then they will promptly DISappear. Are they like the dehydrated Martians from that old Bugs Bunny cartoon? (which is STILL an awesome cartoon, btw)
- Stephen Tobolowsky was, as always, a treat. Too bad he disappeared when the shotguns came out.
I don't think this film has aged well. The ensemble cast is largely wasted (for a 90's film that uses it's whole dynamite cast to full effect, see Glengarry Glen Ross) on exposition or plot advancement, with no *real* conflict to work with; the pacing is too slow (after 80 minutes I was BEGGING for a car chase or something); the humour is rather too low key, or non-existent.
So yeah, there it is.
Thanks for reading. :)