Small Time Crooks

OK, so Woody and his wife (Tracy Ullman) become rich and she wants to buy "class". The movie becomes a sneering put-down of her pretensions. It's just plain ugly.

Elaine May is terrific, though, and I'll give the flick an extra star for her performance (as the wife's cousin).


Rags To Riches To Rags - Very Funny and Heartwarming   June 18, 2004
ZEN (River Ridge, LA United States)
This is such a funny movie. Woody Allen and his partners in crime play up their bumbling idiot characters so well! Tracey Ullman is a genius - She can play any character and make it believable.

This rags to riches to rags story is funny and heartwarming and just fun to watch. This was also the first time I saw Hugh Grant playing such a loathsome character - he was great! What can I say about Elaine May except she is so good that it looks like she's not even acting!

The comedic acting was very good in this movie and I can't wait to own it on DVD so I can sit back and enjoy over and over again.


Woody Rips Off Car 54   April 27, 2004
Edmond Gauthier (USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

Why?

Why did you do it, Woody? Sure, the premise of Small Time Crooks was interesting - but then I felt the same way when I saw it the FIRST time on television - on Car 54, Where Are You? back in the 1950s! Created by Nat Hiken (who also wrote many episodes), that classic cop situation comedy had many very funny plots.

Plots that included the one about the small band of crooks, three male and one female, that open a business next to a New York bank in order to break into the vault next door. But business gets too good, proving to be a huge distraction to the original plan of emptying the bank of its big bucks, and hilarity ensues.

Sound familiar? It should - since Woody obviously lifted that entire scenario in order to make his far-inferior STC film! At first I thought maybe he wrote the original Car 54 script in question, and can therefore do whatever he wants to with his own property. But I checked it out, and no, he did not write that Car 54 script.

(BTW, Tracey Ullman is also particularly terrible in this - she's a Brit playing an Italian who's named Frenchy - try figuring out THAT cultural mess!)

So what happened Woody? Was the white paper in your typewriter that blank? Was your writers' block that insurmountable? Sure, one can always say it's not exactly script-stealing as long as a writer at least slightly changes a plot twist or a line of dialogue here or there, but c'mon, Woody, who did you think you'd fool?

You're not known as a hack writer - you were once considered to be one of the premier comedy talents of the movies, not just in acting but in writing too!

So again, we must all ask, Woody... why?


COMEDY WITH A WISE PREMISE: MONEY CAN ONLY GO SO FAR   April 14, 2004
Shashank Tripathi (Gadabout)
Though essentially a time-marking throwaway by writer/director Woody Allen, "Small Time Crooks" provides so many gems of shining performances that one can overlook the film's derivative plotting and overall lack of comic drive.

In this film, Allen more or less abandons his customary obsession with big city neuroses and middle-aged angst in favor of a more straightforward, plot-driven comedy, paying homage in its patchwork and eclectic story to any number of earlier well-known theatrical and cinematic works.

The somewhat slapstick theme revolves around a hapless couple that accidentally creates a mega-corporation out of a cookie store that is intended to be a front for a bank robbery. Of course, nothing goes as planned, and with one outrageous skit after another, Allen examines the difference between class and wealth, as Ray and Frenchy try to retro-fit into high society.

The highlight of the film comes in the form of a brilliantly satiric pseudo-60 Minutes report in which Steve Kroft himself chronicles the meteoric rise that this ragtag collection of accidental entrepreneurs takes from obscure small business owners to multi-million dollar corporate giants a " a report that pokes affectionate fun at the clichA d rags-to-riches theme so essential to the beloved concept of the "American Dream."

Special note must be made of some of the actors, prime among them Ullman and the always brilliant Elaine May who, as Frenchy's adenoidal, utterly befuddled and endearingly obtuse cousin, returns to her "A New Leaf" roots and provides some of the sweetest comic moments in the film. Hugh Grant is convincing in his own way, without trying too hard.

The film offers a number of dazzling performances to relish, some good situational gaffes, and a lot of time-tested worldly wisdom. Overall not a bad package. Recommended rental.


Funny and engaging, if not Woody's best   December 22, 2003
www.DavidLRattigan.com (United Kingdom)
This comedy caper is by no means among Woody Allen's best, nor the most consistently funny, but it nevertheless entertains. Allen and Ullmann manage to make the central characters warm enough to engage our affections.

Often it is said that Woody cannot do physical comedy, but there are some delightfully amusing moments herein that belie such a criticism, such as Woody's bungled attempts to sneak upstairs at a party to commit a robbery without being noticed.