Imagine the Thomas Crown Affair set on board The Love Boat and you'll have some idea of what to expect in this watchable robbery yarn.

Brosnan is literally a diamond geezer - Max Burdett - who has mastered the cast iron alibi to cover his theft of two of the legendary Napoleon gems.

Salma Hayek - whose breasts need their own (double) billing - is his gorgeous partner-in-crime Lola, a wannabe wife happy to make a dishonest man of him.

Following their latest score, they head off to the Caribbean where Lola is content to devote herself to a decking project and wooing her man.

However, Max has his eyes on the third Napolean diamond, coincidentally the centrepiece of a cruise ship touring exhibition moored just down the road.

To complicate matters, FBI agent Stan (Harrelson), who has spent seven years doggedly pursuing Max, turns up on the paradise island with his own score to settle.

Brosnan essayed the slick thief pitted against the corruptible forces of law more convincingly in his superlative remake of The Thomas Crown Affair.

This plays like the cinematic equivalent of a Babycham with a Malibu chaser - it looks nice but packs an insubstantial punch that fizzes away to nothing.

We don't really need to see a heist setpiece with the black-clad tea-leaf hanging from an air conditioning duct as he dodges a patchwork of laser beam alarms.

There is, however, some decent dialogue. "Just because you're English doesn't mean you have to hide your emotions," Brosnan is told only to reply "I'm Irish...now f**k off."

A bit like an episode of The Holiday Programme with the added frisson of Hayek's bare flesh and Brosnan's jack-the-lad charm, it's sea, sand, sex and seen-it-all-before.

Tim Evans