Heist (2001)

There's a gunfight near the end that has the actors barely bothering to point their guns in the right direction, a sign that the actors' care factor, like the audience's, has dwindled to nothing over the course of David Mamet's increasingly unlikely crime caper, which is a shame given the movie's arresting start that introduces, mid-caper, our gang of grifters headed by Gene Hackman's Joe Moore, the mastermind who, yes, needs to do one more job but this time accompanied by the inexperienced nephew (Sam Rockwell) of his fence (Danny DeVito).

★★☆☆☆

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The Core (2003)

When Earth's electromagnetic forces start misbehaving, unleashing a barrage of stock-footage world-landmark destruction, a crew of scientists, geologists and astronauts is assembled to drive a worm-like burrowing craft to the centre of the Earth to "restart the Earth's core", and boy do they have their work cut out for them: no, not saving the Earth but trying to make look interesting their repetitive chair-shaking encounters with, "Oh my god, diamonds the size of Cape Cod" (chair shake, chair shake) and "Oh my god, giant empty geodes" (chair shake, chair shake) and "Oh my god, hull-breaching lava" (chair shake, chair shake) etc, etc.

★★☆☆☆

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