Customer Reviews

Small Time Crooks

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This movie is downright silly, and I loved every second of it! It's good to see Woody Allen writing, directing, and acting in a comedy movie. So much has been made about this man's personal life that people forget his professional talents.

Woody Allen and Tracy Ullman play a husband and wife in the style of Fred & Ethel Mertz of "I Love Lucy". They constantly bicker at each other, but it still remains an obviously loving relationship.

As the movie begins, Allen's character, Ray, is an ex-con who works as a dish washer, and Ullman plays his manicurist wife, Frenchy. They have exactly $6,000 between them, and they've decided to pool their money with other partners in order to execute a plan to rob a bank. They rent a storefront that neighbors the bank and plan on digging a tunnel from the store to inside the bank's vault. The storefront is turned into a cookie shop as a cover for their operation. The bank robbery idea goes sour, but ironically, the cookie shop flourishes, and the next thing you know, Ray and Frenchy are heading up their own giant cookie corporation. Frenchy decides that she'd like to join the ranks of the classy elite, so she buddies with an art dealer (played by Hugh Grant) and asks him to teach her how to live a lifestyle of affluence. Ray wants no part of this lifestyle, and his relationship with Frenchy begins to suffer. By the end of the movie, their cookie empire crumbles and Frenchy finds out that the art dealer is using her for her money, so Ray and Frenchy must come together again to salvage some money and escape to Florida.

All of this seems like alot to cram into a movie that's only 95 minutes long, but it all happens very fast, and in a very comical way. Woody Allen and Tracy Ullman are great in their roles, and the supporting cast complements them very nicely. This movie is a definite must-see.

This is actually a great comedy of woody allen. I must confess I'm a fan of his movies, but I assure this is one you should not miss.

Woody plays an ex-con who decides to rob a bank. He tries to convince his wife, a manicurist, to spend their money buying an old street shop, so that he and his friends could dig a tunnel, which would supposedly lead them to a bank safety. In order to make it not suspicious, he asks her to sell cookies during the day.However, the cookies shop becomes very popular in the neighborhood and woody and his wife suddenly become noveau rich.

One year later, they are living a new life style, rounded by intelectuals, artists and socialites. In an effort to acquire some culture, the couple hires Hugh Grant to teach them good social manners, and this is the moment the film becomes hilarious. Woody was perfect, as always, playing a rude guy who'd rather watch TV eating chips than going to operas and museums. Besides woody, it's worth watching Elaine May, who plays a clueless cousin of woody's wife.

I also recommend you pay attention to woody's house decoration. In the living room, he had tigers, ancient objects and even an harp! Totally awesome!

This is a movie everyone should see! Inteligent and funny!

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.

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.

Ray and Frenchy (Woody Allen and Tracey Ullman) try to rob a bank but inadvertantly earn an honest fortune in the attempt. Their marraige becomes strained when Frenchy tries to grow into the role of a cultured New York society matron while Ray pines for the simple pleasures he once enjoyed. The dialogue is sharply written by Allen, who surrounds himself with a wonderful cast. This is one of his minor films, but it is very enjoyable. There are not too many big laughs but lots of smiles.

A group of incompetent crooks fail miserably at their latest scheme, but unintentionally find fabulous success in a totally different venture, which leads to its own complications.

Not since the late 80s with Crimes and Misdemeanors has Allen created such a tightly-crafted and totally natural film. The jump cutting is gone, the shaky camera is nowhere to be seen, the obscure artistic allusions completely absent. Instead, Allen packs this little gem with one of the best ensemble casts he's had in years, including the amazingly-talented Tracey Ullman (who seems to have been made to play opposite Woody), the endearingly idiosyncratic Elaine May (another Allen first) and the sophisticated straight foil Hugh Grant.

Critics heralding the return of the early and funny Allen fail to notice that this isn't exactly a nostalgic trip through the world of Bananas or Love and Death. On the contrary, patches of warmth and sweetness are all over the place -- sure there are more sight gags here than in his last five films combined, but sympathetic and believable characterization is also here in buckets. Think of it as a funnier, less earnest Hannah and Her Sisters, sure to become one of its director's most beloved films in years to come. And finally there is some justice in the world, for not only is this his best film in a decade, it's also his most financially successful in years.

Even though Tracey Ullman is a quarter-century younger than Woody Allen, her spot-on comic turn as his tacky manicurist wife makes her the filmmaker's most compatible co-star since Diane Keaton. Together, they winningly play Ray and Frenchy, a vulgar, working-class married couple who rent a restaurant space in order to rob the bank next door. The twist is that Frenchy's cookie business thrives, and they become wealthy beyond their dreams. Written and directed by Allen, this surprisingly free-wheeling 2000 comedy contains little of the deeper life themes that Allen had been exploring for the previous two decades. For the most part, it represents a complete throwback to his first film as a director, the frenetic, nonsensical 1969's "Take the Money and Run", as both are character-driven slapstick farces with a slew of funny one-liners.

The film starts out strong with Ray and his bumbling partners preparing the heist with every conceivable complication standing in their way, in particular, their own stupidity. The storyline makes a unique turn once Ray and Frenchy become successful. They open up a nationwide chain of cookie stores, move to the posh Upper East Side like the Jeffersons, and start hobnobbing with Manhattan's social elite. Their marriage begins to unravel when Frenchy becomes obsessed with being cultured, while Ray is happy to live his life the same way as before. I don't think the movie is consistently flat-out funny like Allen's earlier works, but it does boast a sterling comedy cast. Freed from his intellectual pretensions, Allen looks like he's having a good time playing the unapologetically guttural Ray. Sporting a convincing New Yawk accent, Ullman, the most chameleonic of comic mimics, dexterously captures the ongoing battle between Frenchy's aspirations for social acceptance and her innately tawdry sensibilities.

Michael Rapaport, Tony Darrow and Jon Lovitz play Ray's trio of thick-skulled cohorts with élan, though they unfortunately disappear for the film's second half. It's good to see Elaine May back onscreen playing Ray's ditzy cousin May, and her crack timing with Allen makes me wish she would resuscitate her clever comedy routines with her ex-husband, film director Mike Nichols. As Frenchy's Pygmalion teacher of art and manners, Hugh Grant plays to his suave persona with subtle venality. The film ends almost like a parable albeit with a hilarious development inspired by the cocktail party scene in Alfred Hitchcock's "Notorious". Allen must be quite a fan since he would later use the same plot device in "Scoop". This is lightweight fare though certainly among Allen's most entertaining movies of late. The 2000 DVD provides the theatrical trailer as its only significant extra.

This movie bears repeated viewing. It really only gets better. Tracey Ullman, Elaine May et. al. all played their cooky parts hilariously. The main thing I love about Woody is he lets people do their characters so realistically, and allows lower-key performances that are more true to life. A couple of the crew (who I've seen before in his films, just can't remember their names) are just brilliant stupid crooks -- people I can believe I'd have met (at least, in NYC) before. And as the wimpy mastermind of the scam, Woody plays his own ridiculous but endearing character well.

Watch this movie, if only to see Woody Allen's character threatening to punch his wife. Priceless.

Allen takes a refreshing break from his recent "Sour'n'Dour" sensibilities and returns to an old-fashioned Woodman goof. Woody's befuddled wannabe grand larcenist and his dopey gang of lovable morons(particularly Jon Lovitz) provide plenty of belly laughs for the first third of the film; the story takes an unexpected 180 degree turn that initially throws off the established comic rhythm but eventually wins you over.Allen displays his usual stuntcasting prowess by tossing a couple of Brits into the mix-Hugh Grant typecast as a stuffy English type and the boundlessly versatile Tracey Ullman as Woody's very New Yawkish wife. The real casting coup here was luring national comic treasure Elaine May out of the director's seat and back in front of the camera for a rare acting appearance--she still possesses the chops to crack me up with just a "look" or a subtle inflection. Not Classic Woody, but an encouraging return to form and a worthwhile entertainment.