Daniel Schechter's adaptation of Elmore Leonard's 1978 novel The Switch was the last movie with which the novelist was intimately involved, and this is an unexpectedly winning take from one of the less splashy directors to have attempted Leonard.

It gleams with a faintly tacky, country club sheen. The woman in the crispest whites is Mickey (Jennifer Aniston), playing the stoical socialite wife of fraudster Frank (Tim Robbins, sweaty and repellent). She becomes the target of an ill-planned plot by Ordell (Mos Def) and Louis (John Hawkes), who plan to kidnap her and only release her for $1m. Problem is: Frank wants her out of the picture anyway, having filed divorce papers.

For all its neat plot flips, its nips and tucks and flies in the ointment (such as Will Forte's cowardly would-be lover, who witnesses the abduction), you always know what's likely to happen. What helps this bowl along so happily is the dialogue, neatly filleted and served up a treat. The performances, too, are top-notch: Aniston reminding us of the deft comic timing that first so endeared her; Hawkes a surprisingly convincing male lead. This is a good-natured, show-not-tell treat, almost bloodless fun.