Flawless

Heist movies - while diverting - are very rarely truly engaging. There are exceptions, of course - the Ocean franchise worked so well because it perfected the marriage of slickness, warmth and humour. More often though, there is an imbalance in the mix.

Such is the case here in this Sixties London-based tale of Laura Quinn (Demi Moore): 40-something, Oxford-educated, wedded to her career in a diamond company but now discovering that her employers are set to fire her, she sets out for revenge.

Laura is aided in her scheme by the company's janitor, Mr Hobbs (Michael Caine, without whom surely no heist movie is complete). He cuts such a pathetic figure that he is able to escape all suspicion. So far, so predictable; except that Flawless is curiously told in flashback, as Laura, in her later years, relates her story to a magazine reporter.

Add to this a somewhat self-conscious nod to the inequalities of the diamond industry, and a rather tangled post-heist denouement, and what we have is altogether something of a muddle. ·