SMALL TIME CROOKS (DreamWorks) Starring: Woody Allen, Tracey Ullman, Elaine May, Hugh Grant, Jon Lovitz, Michael Rapaport, Tony Darrow. Screenplay: Woody Allen. Producer: Jean Doumanian. Director: Woody Allen. MPAA Rating: PG (profanity) Running Time: 95 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
In a way, it has been a sad thing watching Woody Allen grow as an artist. I recall watching Allen as bumbling would-be thief Virgil Starkwell in TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN as a youth every time it appeared on local television; I remember the raucous laughter inspired by peeks at the naughtier EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX and SLEEPER. This was Woody before the more mature bittersweet comedy of ANNIE HALL, MANHATTAN and HANNAH AND HER SISTERS, but also before the look-Ma-I'm-Bergman phase of SEPTEMBER and ANOTHER WOMAN. In my heart I longed for Allen to return to arrested adolescence in something besides his romantic life, to a brand of comedy even solid films like MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY and BULLETS OVER BROADWAY didn't provide. In my heart, I longed for Allen to become Virgil Starkwell once again.
I suppose I couldn't have asked for more convincing proof than SMALL TIME CROOKS that Virgil Starkwell is, in fact, dead. Allen plays Ray Winkler, an ex-con who's still got ideas about one big bank score. His latest plan involves tunneling into a neighborhood bank from an adjoining retail space, using his wife Frenchie's (Tracey Ullman) skill at baking cookies as a front. Ray and his cohorts Denny (Michael Rapaport), Tommy (Tony Darrow) and Benny (Jon Lovitz) struggle with digging their tunnel in the right direction, but Frenchie's cookies prove to be a phenomenal success. Instead of a bank score, the Winklers wind up with a business score, landing them in the lap of luxury. And then the trouble begins ...
The abrupt shift in plot from caper comedy to fish-out-of-water comedy takes some adjusting, but it neither makes the film nor ruins it. Each segment of the film has its comic high points, from a broken water main in the basement to an unhealthy obsession with finger bowls. There are also distractions in each segment, including the faux-"Honeymooners" bickering between Ray and Frenchie and Hugh Grant's uncomfortable performance as a fortune-hunting art dealer. As with most of Allen's comedies of the last decade, there are just enough lively gags to remind you why it's still worth looking forward to his films, and just enough dead spots to remind you that he's just not the same.
No shift in Allen's sensibility has been more damaging to his sense of humor than the ever-increasing level of condescension in his films. Once upon a time, the jokes in Woody Allen's films were on Woody; he was the neurotic bumbler whose every movement suggested he was not just out of place in the world, but sometimes out of place in his own body. There's one delightful moment in SMALL TIME CROOKS that nearly re-captures that vibe -- Allen trying to slip away unobtrusively at a posh party -- but more often the joke is on someone else. While Elaine May is amusing as Frenchie's brain-dead cousin, she's also a walking punch line for Ray's sense of superiority. When the film gradually becomes a lesson in being careful what you wish for in case you actually get it, it's Ray's world of simple pleasures that's held up as the ideal. Even when he's playing a loser, he gets to win.
I'd still rather watch any one of Allen's last dozen films (CELEBRITY notably excepted) than the majority of what turns up on the local multiplex screen. He's a smart guy who writes smart comedy, and he's become an immensely gifted film-maker over his 30 year career as a director. Unfortunately, you keep getting the sense that he knows it, that he's grown so enamored of his ability to impress that he forgets what an incredible gift he has simply to make us laugh. There's a sequence in SMALL TIME CROOKS in which the film's characters are interviewed by "60 Minutes'" Steve Kroft for a newsmagazine story. There's some funny stuff in that sequence, but it kept reminding me of the documentary style of TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN. In SMALL TIME CROOKS, it's almost as though Allen is trying to appease those aliens from STARDUST MEMORIES who cracked wise about enjoying his "early, funny" films. Yet even when he's turning out a passably entertaining comedy, it's clear he just doesn't have any Virgil Starkwell left in him.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 negligible criminals: 6.
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