Excellent film featuring an old-fashioned heist, with smart twists.

I discovered this film by chance on Showtime one afternoon. I love Michael Caine, and I am a rabid anglophile, and I love period pieces set in England, so this film intrigued me from the start. I was especially delighted by the plot turns, some of which are very clever and unexpected. The late fifties setting is beautifully depicted in terms of the settings and costumes.

This is an intelligent heist film, which makes clever use of the "weaknesses" of its two main characters. Demi Moore's hard-working Anglo-American employee of the LonDi company has sacrificed marriage and children (and her emotional happiness) to build her career in an era before most women made such sacrifices, and she learns, in a devastating moment, that she has crashed against an unbreakable glass ceiling. One of the best scenes of the film happens when Demi meets an old flame for lunch; she realizes she is in a desperate position and she hopes for a new job, and maybe something more, from the man she knew while a student at Oxford. You can see the lonely, aching regret on her face when she discovers that he can't help her find another job, and that he is now happily married with "three daughters to prove it." She finds herself in a desperate predicament, so that Michael Caine's unusual proposal starts to make sense.

I thought the best part of the film was Michael Caine's lovable character (the ignored, belittled janitor) and his reason for pulling off the theft that brings the most powerful diamond company in the world to its knees. I thought it was profound, and I thought it was quite unexpected. It also added a touching depth to the film. An interesting film, worth watching.