I wonder why are there so few reviews and so little discussion about this movie? At first, it's seems like a typical 1995 b-movie with the exact feel from that era. It started off great. Nicely filmed, starring Billy Zane (normally an excellent actor), James 'freakin' Coburn! Yes, Our Man Flint himself. How can it go wrong? Oh, man does it go wrong.I caught it for free on Amazon Prime and I should have been paid to watch it. I suggest that you get together with a group of friends with your remote handy. Every time someone in the cast does something that is completely foreign to what a normal human who lives on earth would do, take a shot of beer. By the end of the movie, you and all your friends will be rip- roaring drunk and projective vomiting on each other between fits of laughter. For extra credit, have a bottle of jack Daniels handy. Every time one of the characters makes an unfulfilled threat such as: "You have (fill in blank) seconds to (fill in blank: Do something) or I'm going to (fill in blank: Do you some manner of harm)" and then doesn't do ANYTHING AT ALL, please take a shot. It will add to the hilarity. Examples - Direct Quote: "If I don't see her in exactly five seconds, I'm going to kill you!" 1-2-3-4-5. Nothing. Direct Quote: "If you ever touch me again, I'll kill you!" The guy touches him again MULTIPLE TIMES yet doesn't get killed. This happens over and over and over and over again. All kidding aside, who is the writer of this movie? There is no way he has ever written a movie.Horrific writing, truly absurd plot twists, a serious gem of stupidity and cliché movie-making. Should most definitely be part of any bad movie aficionado arsenal!

I read the James Hadley Chase's novel many years ago. And as far as I can remember, this film is faithful to the book. Same atmosphere, same characters, as we always saw in this great writer's novels, where greed was always omnipresent, where the characters always searched and succeeded in spoiling, screwing, killing, cheating each other for money. Greed, greed, greed...that was Chase's world. Blackmails within blackmails, murders scheme within murder schemes, breathtaking twists within breathtaking twists; you were always aspired by those gruesome suspense stories, where there were no really "good" characters, always "bad" ones who deserved what eventually happened to them.I won't repeat the topic of this film, the other user did it fine. It looks like a TV movie for Saturday evenings, but it's worthwhile. I'll finish in pointing out that most adaptations of JH Chase were not so brilliant, most of them comedies from Europe.One good heist film too.

Billy Zane is a paroled jewel thief, an expert in high-tech security systems. His last caper went terribly wrong, costing his wife and partner in crime her life and landing him in prison for six years.Resolved to stay on the straight and narrow, he's been hired by James Coburn to design an impenetrable system for Coburn's new bank. Zane becomes romantically involved with Coburn's ex-mistress, Mia Sara. After the bank opens, she's kidnapped by James Russo and his gang of thugs, who threaten to kill her unless Zane can figure out a way to get around his own system.There's enough acting talent here to carry this thing along -- but just barely. James Coburn -- well, need I say more? Zane can do noir, if you give him the right material, as he would show two years later in "This World ... Then the Fireworks". Unfortunately, there's something sadly missing here: Perhaps it's the lackadaisical direction or the story itself, but either way, none of the characters are particularly original or interesting. You know who's the femme fatale from the beginning, so her betrayal doesn't have much dramatic or emotional impact. And Russo plays exactly the same sort of hair-triggered heavy he's played a dozen times before. The heist itself should be the centerpiece of this kind of film, especially when you make such a big deal out of your protagonist's sooper-dooper security system. But the sequence is surprisingly humdrum and listless.And that's about the only surprise you'll get in this movie. Even when a story makes use of well-worn noir conventions, it can still be a fun ride if it's done with style and a bit of imagination. Don't look for them here, though. "The Set-Up" has a few good moments, but I doubt if it's going to show up on anybody's list of great neo-noirs.