|
Synopsis:
Woody Allen returns to his slapstick days with this
comic romp, which centers on a small-time hood, Ray
Winkler, who just can't catch a break. It's as if Virgil
Starkwell (Allen's hysterically incompetent criminal
mastermind from TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN) has finally gotten
out of prison and is still up to his old scheming. Against
his wife Frenchy's (Tracey Ullman) better judgment, Ray
puts together a ragtag group of misfits, including a
scene-stealing Elaine May, and immerses them in a crazy
plot to rob a bank. But everything gets upended when their
front, a cookie store, takes off, thrusting the Winklers
into the upper echelons of New York's high society.
SMALL TIME CROOKS looks like no other Allen film;
gone are the black-and-white shades of Manhattan, replaced
instead by the ridiculously loud shirts Ray wears and the
perfectly garish furniture and artwork Frenchy
accumulates. Even the Allen soundtrack, usually
exclusively jazz, big band, and Dixieland standards,
features "Tequila" by the Champs as an
underlying theme. What stands out most of all, however, is
the offbeat, charming relationship between Ray and Frenchy,
two ne'er-do-wells who get to spend a little time at the
top.
|
|
|
Business
& 
