The back of The Code's DVD box explains in detail about the film's plot and characters, which is very helpful considering the movie itself makes nothing about it clear other than its utter badness. Heist thrillers are supposed to be delightfully confusing and plot twisty, but The Code is so shapeless that it can't even manage to establish a surface plot, let alone ably twist its details. This is a heist movie where the only valuable thing I know was stolen was two hours of my life.

The Code features the teaming of Morgan Freeman and Antonio Banderas, a feat that makes one wonder why this film went straight to DVD. Was no one clamoring for the Freeman-Banderas Dream Team? The two actors play notorious thieves who team up to pull off the predictable "big score," and while the movie they're in is deadly, their scenes together hold a certain awkward appeal. Watching Freeman and Banderas trade bon mots in hushed tones is like watching a no-holds-barred grudge match of whose voice can be the most soothing. In that way, The Code could serve as a foolproof sleep aid.

One thing that might keep viewers awake is the sheer confounding ridiculousness of the film's story line, which is an incomprehensible mess. Subterfuge is a common element in "con-man" movies, but this film barely tries to explain a single strand of its unwieldy plot -- it would be the most disastrously incomprehensible movie of the year if it weren't also so blindly predictable.

The story, as far as I can understand it: Freeman is the grizzled veteran, Banderas the sassy younger protégé. They decide to steal some Fabergé eggs, in the "one last score" mode that shapes most heist flicks. But wait -- Russian thugs want it, too, so they can proceed to do whatever Russian thugs do with Fabergé eggs. And it so happens that Freeman's goddaughter (Radha Mitchell) has familial ties to the KGB, which means she must not be exactly what she seems. Freeman doesn't want Banderas to go near his beloved goddaughter, which means he must seduce her, gyrating his lothario buttocks in a lugubrious soft-core love scene. Eventually the couple falls in love, which of course means the woman must be kidnapped, forcing our heroes to spring into action, working to pull off their big job while also foiling the "unexpected" kidnapping, etc. The film itself does nothing to explain any of this, but two hours of blank staring at an unconscionable movie makes certain banal generalities clear. The Code also features an unfortunate appearance by the great Robert Forster, playing a cop who has never quite captured Freeman and who still hungers to make the arrest. Forster's scenes are so detached from the rest of the movie that they seem like they were excised from a different bad movie and plunked into this bad movie.

The Code was directed by Mimi Leder, one of the more prolific female action directors of the last several years. This latest film, however, is proof positive that not everyone can make a "cool" film -- not even seasoned pros. Leder, who must have been wading knee-deep in this refuse while fellow female action director Kathryn Bigelow was helming the fabulous The Hurt Locker, throws every possible movie trick she has at the audience -- the slick synthesizer music, the sudden frame-rate increases, the wannabe-witty banter -- but none of it registers as cool. Try as it might, nothing in The Code is cool; instead, it all comes across as sloppy, lazy, and unable to keep up with its own con.

Aka Thick as Thieves.