CASH
DVD. Metrodome.

Cash director Eric Besnard must frequently scratch his head in bemusement at the fact that his ultra-slick, desperately cool heist thriller hasn’t achieved the sort of global hipster recognition that it was clearly aiming for - and probably deserves. But them’s the breaks. Perhaps a less bland and common-place title would help.

It’d be nice to think that the bare-bones release (not even a trailer!) might change that, but I suspect it will be heading for DVD anonymity, which is a shame. Because this is a thoroughly entertaining movie with more twists than a Chubby Checker convention.

In fact, the film is so full of double crosses, triple crosses, fake-outs, corruption and people who are not what you think that any synopsis has to be approached with caution. On the surface level – Cash (Jean Dujardin) is a small time con-man who gets involved in a $12 million diamond heist plan with Maxime (Jean Reno), his sexy and manipulative partner Alice Taglioni and a cop (Valeria Golino) who may be willing to become part of the criminal underworld or may be simply playing them along. That’s revealing too much already – suffice to say that the film is ultimately a story of revenge as much as robbery.

Self-consciously dripping with ultra-cool imagery and characters, Cash certainly doesn’t lack confidence. Whether it’s any less superficial than its characters is open to debate, but there’s no denying that it’s a fast-moving, stylish and ridiculously complicated effort that demands your attention – lose focus for a moment and you’ll probably miss an important plot point in which someone is revealed to be not who you think they are or a character is double-crossed. As with many films playing this game, it has plot holes and contrived conveniences aplenty, but moves at a brisk enough pace for you not to notice or care. If there is a fault, it's that the continual plot twists are a little too much, especially when they involve minor characters.

I wasn’t expecting much from this, but was pleasantly surprised at how much fun it turned out to be. Hopefully, a few other people will be too.

DAVID FLINT

BUY IT NOW (UK) DVD • BLU-RAY

BUY IT NOW (USA)