Stars: Hugh Grant, Tracey Ullman, Woody Allen, Michael Rapaport, Jon Lovitz, Elaine May, Elaine Stritch, George Grizzard

Director: Woody Allen

Summary: Ray is a small time criminal who sets his sights on opening a cookie shop with the aim of robbing the bank next door...

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.

WIN DVDs by rating this DVD

Average User Rating:

WIN DVDS by being amongst the first to review this DVD. Reviewing DVDs earns you bonus entries and lets you WIN DVDs!Please login before reviewing this DVD. If you're a new user, register for free and enter to WIN FREE DVDs!

In Small Time Crooks, Woody Allen plays someone radically distinct from himself and his standard film persona--Ray, a failed safe-cracker who believes that his nickname "The Brain" is other than sarcastic. Increasingly, Allen is at his best when least present in his films, either by playing someone else or by having someone else play him. Good and funny as he is here, though, the film belongs to the two women stars: Tracey Ullmann is a force of nature as Frenchy, Ray's wife, who turns their cookie shop cover story for a bank job into a multi-million dollar enterprise and then decides that she wants to smarten up their image; Elaine May, meanwhile, is adorable as Frenchie's dim cousin May, one of the film's principal voices of good sense. Hugh Grant is a splendidly despicable gigolo and a large cast do impressive comic turns. Another of the film's stars, though, is the decor of Frenchie's apartment--there's a guilty pleasure in seeing just what vast wealth and bad taste can do. Small Time Crooksis lightweight Allen, but it is attractively good-humoured and intelligently plotted and not above the pleasures of pure slapstick--the sight gags when Ray and his gang are trying to tunnel into the bank are predictable but still funny.

On the DVD:The DVD has Dolby sound, which brings out attractively a score made up of forgotten pop songs from the late-Swing Era; the anamorphic widescreen picture gives surprising crispness to what is, most of the time, a chamber piece.--Roz Kaveney

Aspect Ratio:	16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Theatrical Trailer
Year:	2000
Release Date:	October 21, 2002
Runtime:	90 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	C C D 9309
Label:	Film Four Distributors
Keywords:	Small, Time, Comedy, General, Crooks, Wide, Screen
Genre:	Comedy