ENTRAPMENT. 20th Century-Fox, 1999. Sean Connery, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Ving Rhames, Will Patton. Rating: PG-13. Director: Jon Amiel.

   I have listed four actors in this movie, and while the last two of the four have small but significant roles to play, the fact of the matter is that this is a two-star picture — Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones — and no one else matters very much at all. One or the other is on the screen, let’s say about 99% of the time, and often both. If for some reason you have an aversion to either one, and I don’t see possibly how, but OK, I’ll concede it, then this is not the movie for you.

   Storyline: Virginia Baker (Catherine Zeta-Jones) works for an insurance company specializing in security. Robert MacDougal (Sean Connery) is an art thief.

   Um. Do you need more than that? Of course there’s more. This is a caper movie, one with many, many intricate plans for stealing things, and getting away with it, and yes, they are working together on almost all of them, for reasons that are complicated and you don’t want to know about them before you watch this movie anyway.

   A question though: If you are forced to go along with a theft — you know, incriminating photos or the like — is that entrapment or blackmail? I thought so.

   Many of those leaving comments on IMDB mention the lack of chemistry between Gin and Mac, or the actors who play them. Nonsense, I say. Utter nonsense. One of Mac’s rules is that there be no romantic involvement between partners in the crimes he commits, and he is sorely if not wistfully tempted to break it; and it is clear — well, as clear as anything is clear in this small masterpiece of role-playing, we know she is playing a role, but what role is not so clear — that she returns the feeling. Those IMDB viewers must have been very young.

   At the age of 30, Catherine Zeta-Jones may have been at the peak of her youthful beauty — slim and lithesome and fair of face — when she made this movie. At the age of 69, Sean Connery is as handsome as ever, mismatched in terms of age, perhaps, but most definitely not in terms of the fire within.