Woody Allen's characters seem all the same: small-whiny-guy-so-full-of-himself, and sometimes his ego gets so in-your-face, because he keeps casting himself as the lead guy (see Mighty Aphrodite, Hollywood Ending, Anything Else). But in Small Time Crooks, it does work , because no one could play the loser criminal who's a really a ... say it with me ... "small-whiny-guy-so-full-of-himself." Which is probably why he writes scripts with variations of the same character. Anyway, Ray (Allen), a dishwasher who previously served a jail sentence for robbery, makes plans to rob a bank by taking over a store two doors down, and tunnelling underneath. The dumb plan, concocted with his pals Denny (Michael Rapaport), Tommy (Tony Darrow) and Benny (Jon Lovitz), is met with derision by his level-headed wife Frenchy (Tracy Ullman), but she goes along with it anyway. Their verbal sparring, and most of the dialogue, is terrific, very New York-y, and is a hallmark of Allen scriptwriting. The plan doesn't work, but the losers still strike it rich, because the cookie shop they opened as a front becomes an overnight corporate success. Soon, the couple tries to insinuate themselves into high society (hey, where the hell did the rest of the cast go? budget constraints?), and their roles become reversed, as he becomes the level-headed one, while she unwittingly used by a charming art dealer (Hugh Grant). In the end, Allen shows that you can't change your spots, and you just have to be the best at what you are. Hey, where's the rest of the cast??
"See this fist? It hits as hard as Roy Jones Jr's right hook ... c'mon, dare me, woman, dare me!"
No comments:
Post a Comment