Flawless (2008 film)

Flawless
He had a scheme. She had a motive
Directed by	Michael Radford
Written by	Edward Anderson
Produced by	Carola Ash Jimmy de Brabant Stephen Margolis Albert Martinez Martin Michael A. Pierce Richard Pierce Charles Salmon Mark Williams
Starring	Demi Moore Michael Caine Joss Ackland Jonathan Aris Simon Day Josef d'Bache-Kane
Cinematography	Richard Greatrex
Edited by	Alex Anstey Stephen Boucher
Music by	Paul Englishby Allan Jenkins Robert Houston
Distributed by	Magnolia Pictures
Release dates	February 11, 2007
Running time	108 min
Language	English

Flawless is a crime film directed by Michael Radford, written by Edward Anderson, and starring Michael Caine and Demi Moore.

Flawless premiered 11 February, 2007 in Germany. The film opened in limited release in the United States on 28 March, 2008.

Warning: There are plot spoilers in the last two paragraphs of the synopsis.

Synopsis

The film is set in the early 1960's. Mr. Hobbs, a janitor played by Michael Caine, is about to retire but does not want to leave empty-handed. He asks Laura Quinn (Demi Moore), a disgruntled executive victimized by the glass ceiling, to help him steal from the company for which they both work: the London Diamond Corporation.

The film opens with the camera focusing on women in various positions of power, from different backgrounds, most of them handling some kind of business on PDAs or cellular phone. The camera follows one woman, a writer for a newspaper who is doing a piece on "Women Who Led." As she enters a restaurant to interview a woman to be included in this piece, she is talking on her cell phone to an associate who has guaranteed her a front page spot for a story, of which the writer seems to be very proud. The woman she is meeting with is Laura Quinn, the only woman to ever have been a manager at the London Diamond Corporation during the late 50's into 1960. Quinn in a very nonchalant manner places a box on the table, and out of this box pulls a large diamond of approximately 123 carats. The writer is astounded and eyes the piece as Quinn says, "I stole it."

The movie flashed back to 1960, when Quinn was still employed as a manager at London Diamond Corporation. She is the first person to arrive at work, and is always the last to leave. Despite her having proved herself intellectually superior to her male co-workers, she is passed over for a promotion for the sixth time. She pretends to brush it off, but it is plain to see that is severely bothers her. The janitor, Mr. Hobbs, says small supportive things to her when he cleans her office at night and then proceeds on his way, obviously an admirer of her strength and resolve to accomplish more than the men at London Diamond. When the company is in danger of losing a crucial contract with the Russians, Quinn saves the company with a simple solution, but the Russians will not proceed unless the arrangements are kept secret from everyone except senior management, which excludes Quinn. Quinn is to be terminated, but Mr. Hobbs finds out and warns her. Additionally, he offers her a place in a plot against the company. A plot that will guarantee him a hearty pension and will make her departure from the company a little more satisfying: stealing enough diamonds to make them rich, but not enough so that anyone will notice they are missing.

The plan is almost ruined when the company installs cameras to monitor the hallways, but Quinn discovers a loophole and the plan proceeds. However, instead of Mr. Hobbs only filling his coffee thermos with diamonds, he steals every single diamond, almost two tons worth, and holds them for ransom. For 100 million pounds, the London Diamond Corporation will get all of its diamonds back. Quinn never agreed to this and now finds herself trapped. The company hired a private investigator to keep the matter from going public. If the world were to know that the single supplier of diamonds to six continents had lost its supply, the diamond market would crash. Mr. Finch keeps a close eye on Mr. Hobbs and Miss Quinn, but still does not have sufficient evidence against either of them. Quinn says they have to turn themselves in and perhaps avoid jail time if they give the diamonds back. Mr. Hobbs confesses that his cause is worth one thousand lives in jail, and refuses to disclose the location of the diamonds. She begins to realize this was never about his pension.

Mr. Finch tries to press Miss Quinn for more information, but she does not crack. He threatens that he has evidence against her, but she still does not reveal any information to him. When the president of the company has a heart attack over the stress of the situation, Mr. Finch is called away. Miss Quinn runs to the bathroom and cries uncontrollably. She pulls a handkerchief from her purse which held one of her earrings she had taken apart earlier in the film. The diamond from the earring falls down the drain of the sink and into the trap underneath. As she takes it apart and retrieves it, she gets an idea as to where the diamonds could be. She goes down into the sewer under the company and finds Mr. Hobbs guarding a passage. He pulls a gun on her to prevent her from finding the diamonds, but she finds the one from the beginning of the movie on the floor. Mr. Hobbs confesses that she is correct, it was never about the pension. When his wife was diagnosed with cancer, the doctors told him that it was totally preventable and curable. But when they requested a hospital from the management at London Diamond, they were told it was not an emergency. When she was finally able to stay in the hospital, the cancer was too far gone. The plot was purely revenge. The manager of London Diamond died of a heart attack and the financial backer from King's Row, the man who ultimately prevented Mr. Hobbs' wife from getting the medical help she needed, was financially ruined by paying the ransom and took his own life.

Once the deadline for the ransom has passed, Mr. Hobbs leaves. Miss Quinn proceeds through the tunnel and finds the mountain of diamonds, she calls Mr. Finch. She almost decides to give up the huge diamond as well, but decides against it. As the film returns to the present, the reporter is more than intrigued by her story. Quinn states that later on, she was passed over for a promotion once again, but tendered her resignation the very next day. After she quit, she received a letter from a bank in Switzerland stating that a specified amount had been deposited to an account in her name, an amount of 100 million pounds. Mr. Hobbs had given her all of it. Quinn tells the reporter that when she received that money, that is when the real story began. She gets up and walks away leaving a manuscript with the reporter. The manuscript details how Quinn spent the rest of her life donating all of the money from the plot to different organizations from cancer research to African charities, especially in the blood diamond region. She was finally able to focus on starting a family now that she was not consumed with proving herself to men. But she did confess to keeping the diamond, perhaps as a symbol of the vanity she had left. The reporter runs out of the cafe and watches Quinn walk down the street, as she looked in 1960.

Cast

• Michael Caine as Mr. Hobbs
• Demi Moore as Laura Quinn
• Lambert Wilson as Finch
• Joss Ackland as Mka
• Jonathan Aris as Boyle
• Constantine Gregory as Dmitriev

Critical reception

The film received generally positive to average reviews from critics. As of June 15, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 60% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 65 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 57 out of 100, based on 21 reviews.

Box office performance

The film was released 5 October, 2007 in Spain and has grossed $2.2 million there as of 6 January, 2008.

External links

• Flawless at IMDb
• Flawless at Rotten Tomatoes
• Flawless at Metacritic
• Flawless at Box Office Mojo
• Flawless at AllMovie