Copyright © 2000 by Michael
Segers, All rights reserved
Small Time Crooks
Starring:
Frenchy
Winkler - Tracey Ullman
Ray Winkler - Woody Allen
David - Hugh Grant
Benny - Jon Lovitz
May - Elaine
May Denny - Michael Rapaport
Chi Chi Potter - Elaine Stritch
Writer,
director – Woody Allen
Runtime
94 minutes, rated PG for language
Messages
from my old New York buddy Barbara are always welcomed, and this one especially
so. She had just seen Woody Allen’s Small Time Crooks, and she e-mailed
me, "Why can’t I learn to appreciate him?" If even someone from my
New York period shares my lack of appreciation for Woody Allen, the most New-Yorky
of filmmakers, then maybe I am not so out of touch here in my electronic peanut
patch. I’m afraid that this new film does little to change my mind.
Small
Time Crooks comes across as episodes in a sit-com, because in its hour
and a half or so, Allen rambles through about a half dozen stories, or bits of
stories, that work out to a film that is less than the sum of its parts. Even I
will grant that Allen has had some very high points, but Crooks is much
closer to the dreadful Celebrity than to Annie Hall.
If
you have seen the previews or heard much on television about this film, you
probably have the wrong idea. It is not a romp through a bungled bank robbery,
like Martin Brest’s Going in Style (1979). Instead, in the beginning,
the first episode, the film is a weird updating of "The Honeymooners,"
with Ullman and Allen playing a rather economically-challenged New York couple
who fuss, fluster, and threaten, while Allen’s Ray cooks up an absurd bank
robbery. It’s The Honeymooners, all right, with all the ugliness but
none of the charm that keeps that vintage television comedy so vital to our
popular culture that it provides inspiration not only for this film but also for
the current Flintstone adventure (as for all Flintstone ventures).
The
scheme involves renting a vacant store and tunneling from it into the bank
vault. Frenchy, Ray’s wife, is recruited to bake and sell cookies to provide a
cover for Ray and his dumbbell buddies. These people supposedly know each other,
but they all seem to come out of a vacuum and less than halfway through the
film, most of them return there. We know that Ray spent two years in prison,
where he was called the Brain—sarcastically, as the other conspirators remind him. But, there is no sense
of cohesion, no reason to believe or care about them.
That’s
a real problem. Robbery has long been a staple topic for comedy on film; think
of all the jewel thieves (Marlene Dietrich in Desire in 1936) and cat
burglars (Sean Connery in last year’s Entrapment). If we are supposed
to violate the moral code, to see some humor in a bank robbery, for instance,
and to sympathize with the crooks, then those crooks, small time or otherwise,
must be sympathetic in some way. This gang is so unpleasant that I was left
feeling that they should have the book or, even worse, this script thrown at
them.
In
a fanciful fairy tale twist, Frenchy and Ray become millionaires, not as a
result of the failed bank robbery but as a result of the popularity of
Frenchy’s cookies. The most successful moments of the film are in the
television report on the strange corporate culture of the cookie empire. But, at
that point, not quite half way through the film, the rest of the series should
have been cancelled.
Frenchy
and Ray make fools of themselves by trying to join high society (not so much Beverly
Hillbillies as Upper East Side Hillbillies). Frenchy hires a snobbish
tranquilizer-popping art-dealer played with predictable foppishness by Hugh
Grant to teach her how to be a… Oh, well, at one point, he gives her a copy of
Pygmalion. Meanwhile, Ray consoles himself with the company of
Frenchy’s cousin May (superbly played by Elaine May) and plans for one last
heist—a rather simple lifting of a piece of jewelry.
Then,
in a conclusion that seems to be the end to some other movie, things do not
really work out but just get papered over. I guess there is some subtle
brilliance that Woody-ites savor but which I’m still trying to find. But, not
yet.
I
never feel comfortable with a review like this. Writing one review a week, I
would like to celebrate film, share my love of movies with you, but the truth
is, this film just does not give me an opportunity to do so. This time, to
compensate for my own shortcomings, I’m directing you to two online critics,
rather than just one as usual, and I think you’ll find the tension between the
two reviews of interest. First, there’s Laura Clifford—
http://www.filmfrenzy.com/mr.phtml?zipcode=02148&radius=0&mid=25446&aid=41
Then
Rob McKinnon—
http://www.iten.net/movie%5Freview/comedy/2000small%5Ftime%5Fcrooks.htm
For
all kinds of links about Woody Allen, check—
http://shady-acres.com/woody_a/woodyallen.html
The
Honeymooners is commemorated and celebrated here—
http://www.fiftiesweb.com/honeymnr.htm
For
the connection between The Honeymooners and The Flintstones,
including the legend that Jackie Gleason considered a lawsuit to get The
Flintstones off the air—
http://www.powerup.com.au/~ves/faq13.html
http://www.powerup.com.au/~ves/faq14.html
Looking
over recent video issues, I am glad to have the opportunity to call to your
attention again two films that I have very much enjoyed by reminding you of my
original reviews, as well as a review by another online critic. This time, in
the interest of fair play, I’ll balance my enthusiastic reviews with ones that
take a decidedly different view. First, here is Bringing Out the Dead, as
seen from the peanut patch—
http://www.peanut.org/users/mike/text/Bearingw.htm
Now,
for the words of Chuck Schwartz, “the Cranky Critic”—
http://www.crankycritic.com/archive99/bringingoutthedead.html
I
rave about End of the Affair here—
http://www.peanut.org/users/mike/text/Endofthe.htm
While
Matt Easterbrook covers the other side quite eloquently—
http://home.istar.ca/~matte/bendrix.htm
Try
to avoid the temptation to rob a bank. Just settle for making your fortune in
cookies, now that the NASDAQ has cooled down (way down), with your feet dry and
your heart full of noble thoughts.
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