DEMI Moore’s face actually shows some expression for the first time in years in the opening scene of her latest abortive comeback vehicle, the slack heist caper “Flawless.”
Unfortunately, that’s because she’s donned a ton of bad latex to play an 80-something in present-day bookends for a story set mainly in 1960 London, where Demi’s usually immobile features are on view.
Sporting a faux British accent, she’s the only American and the only female executive at headquarters for an international diamond cartel.
Not only passed over for promotion again but on the verge of dismissal, she decides to get even in spades after an about-to-retire janitor tries to recruit her in a scheme to empty the company’s vaults.
The janitor is played, with minimal enthusiasm, by Michael Caine. He and Moore last appeared together in 1984, when the then-teenage actress was cast as his daughter in the dismal sex comedy “Blame It on Rio.”
The plot contortions that very slowly unfold under Michael Radford’s arthritic direction in “Flawless” are not much more entertaining.
The script by American Edward Anderson, a newcomer, is never terribly convincing, even when he sticks to a straight crime drama.
Lambert Wilson plays an investigator probing the theft, which turns out to be much bigger than Moore planned on.
“Flawless” makes frequent detours to comment on the morality of the diamond trade, British health care – and charitable contributions by crooks. About all they’ve left out is the wisdom of Botox use by actresses of a certain age.