A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

I really didn't care much for GAMBIT, a heist caper comedy which is so light-hearted as to be completely insubstantial and lacking in anything approaching depth or narrative. I couldn't stand Shirley MacLaine in it either, from her self-centred character to her stupid hairstyle, everything about her was repulsive. I'm a fan of Michael Caine but he acts little better than a clothes horse here and merely stands around looking vacant for long stretches of time. The reliable Herbert Lom is better but given little to do throughout. The plot tries to resemble the likes of CHARADE and ARABESQUE, two films I did enjoy, but it feels inferior at all times, and oh-so-dated.

Gambit is a fun but dated caper film starring Michael Caine, Shirley MacLaine and Herbert Lom. The first half of the film is Caine describing the perfect heist. Caine is cool and resourceful, MacLaine is beautiful and silent, Lom who is the mark, is the shifty wealthy Arab. The second half of the film is the actual heist taking place as they try to steal a priceless sculpture and things do not go according to plan but the film still has a few twists up its sleeve.MacLaine is miscast as a Eurasian, Lom is less of a villain but a man who is urbane as well as suspicious and knows early on that something is afoot.It is an enjoyable romp with a lightness of touch.

Gambit (1966)I love both Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine, and yet I went into the movie with low expectations. Maybe this was partly the dull poster art (which is all I had to go on), or just the fact I had never heard of the movie (and I see a lot of movies from this era).And it was really good! Yes, a fun, snappy, somewhat contrived but still engaging piece of very 1960s entertainment. It begins with a narrative trick, which I can't reveal, but the first twenty minutes is a kind of set-up or reference point for the next hour. Once you see it happen, it's a big laugh, and they actors play it out well, though with a slight bit of camp. Caine plays a thief and con man, and MacLaine is just a willing and slightly naive participant. At first.We are supposed to believe, as well, that these two young charming people are not made for each other (they act disinterested), but the love story becomes a small part of the situation. The third main actor is Herbert Lom, who plays an Arab connected to oil (this is several years before the oil embargo, and more than a decade before the first big Islamic uprising, the one in Iran in 1979). He happens to be the richest man in the world. And a target for this British man looking for easy success.Easy it is, if only things were what they seemed at first. Brightly lit, photographed with verve and acted with a kind of wink to the camera, the movie is just good fun. This isn't a drama, it's a comedy, and it will brighten your day even if you have to ignore the forced twists in the plot. Michael Caine had just finished filming the astonishing "Alfie" which is both funny and truly dramatic, and he was proving to be a complex and yet still caddishly likable leading man, very British. Shirley MacLaine (an American) had been making charming funny movies for some time, playing the cute and vulnerable "girl" over and over (as in "The Apartment" best of all, but see "Irma la Douce" too, where she is a prostitute). Together here they are really well matched and hold up the movie start to finish. Remember to make it through the "set-up" part of the movie, which will at first seem a little stiff. It makes sense later!

In the 1960s Hollywood combined the classic "caper" film with a healthy dose of romantic comedy. The result was a series of charming films such as CHARADE (1963) and HOW TO STEAL A MILLION (1966)--films that combined major stars, clever plots, witty scripts and which balanced suspense with comic and romantic complications.Made in 1966 and released in 1967, GAMBIT was among the last of these films, and like all others in the genre it had a complex plot. Ahmad Shahbandar (Herbert Lom) is quite possibly the richest man in the world and a recluse to boot, a man who has never gotten over the death of his beautiful Eurasian wife some twenty years ago. Harry Dean (Michael Caine) devises a clever plan to gain access to his luxury apartment and rob him blind: he will use honky-tonk dancer Nicole Chang (Shirley MacLaine), who bears a striking resemblance to Shahbandar's long dead wife, to breach Shahbandar's defenses.There's only one problem: it won't work. To tell exactly why it won't work is to betray the plot, which is extremely clever; suffice to say that Dean has made a number of incorrect assumptions about both the situation and the personalities involved. When the plot begins to twist, it does so in a truly unexpected way, taking both Dean and the audience completely by surprise.This is the sort of film that Hollywood used to do so well but which we seldom see today, a frothy, glamorous confection with first rate production values and expert performances from major stars. MacLaine gets top billing, and she is quite fine, but the weight of the film rests on Caine and Lom, who give memorably dry performances, and director Ronald Neame (who was responsible for a host of memorable films including THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE) keeps everything moving along at a smart pace with plenty of style.This may not be the best of the genre--I think both CHARADE and HOW TO STEAL A MILLION, to name but two, outpace it. But even so it is a perfectly charming film, the perfect antidote to a drab afternoon. Just add popcorn! GFT, Amazon Reviewer