Save your money for something good and enjoyable

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Nicole Chang (Shirley MacLaine) is a Hong Kong nightclub dancer. Harry Dean (Michael Caine) hires her to do a job. He plans to rob the wealthy recluse Ahmad Shahbandar (Herbert Lom). His late wife resembled Nicole and with a makeover, she becomes an exact copy posing as Harry's wife.The movie starts with a long fake out. It does throw the movie off in a strange mood as essentially it redoes the first act. I actually love the real Nicole Chang. The relationship between her and Harry is much more complicated. I really don't like it at first but then the movie does the standard rom-com love-hate move. These two great actors almost sold me on this pairing but in the end, it's a little too hard. The caper has plenty of twists and it's pretty good. There are a couple of unusual elements in this movie that keeps me from truly loving it.

A corkscrew picture with so many twists and turns you may need to take notes. I love the screenplay idea that first shows how the theft is supposed to go, and then shows how it really goes. Very imaginative and a perfect set-up for comedy. As it is, the movie's a rather light- hearted caper film where everybody outwits everybody else, but no one really gets hurt.Caine's perfect as the conniving English gentleman. Besides no one wears upscale suits as well as he. MacLaine too is a dazzler in her many gowns; let's just hope they weren't paying her by the word. Note how athletic she is, a skill from her days as a dancer, I suppose. It's sort of good to see the scary Herbert Lom as the Big Cheese rich guy. I'm troubled, however, because his commanding presence always makes me bolt from the chair and stand at attention.Anyway, there are echoes here from 1964's Topkapi, but this one's more plot heavy. Then too, I can't decide whether that very last twist is just one too many or a perfect way to end a corkscrew film. All in all, it's an imaginative heist movie at a time when there were lots, but this one's as good as any. Besides, I nominate Caine and MacLaine as the eye-catching couple of the decade, or maybe longer.

A brilliantly paced, gripping crime caper, the film has an interesting plot formula, and in general it is quite engaging stuff. Neame's vision of the film involves many close-ups and low camera angles, and this provides an enticing visual style. It is often amusing, with clever ideas, clever sets and wonderful costumes. MacLaine is also very good in an intriguing performance that involves her being silent for the first 25 minutes. So, what can one say against this film? It is a bit silly, a tad overlong, somewhat predictable, and not very deep, but as simple entertainment you cannot find many films better than this. I found it a joy to watch, and Neame's crafting as director can be admired too. It is a great film, even if not a masterpiece, although, for its genre, it could possibly be regarded as a masterpiece.

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