Small Time Crooks (2000)

Take the Money and......
Everyone I hope recognizes that, if one lives long enough, that one is bound to start recycling ideas. That is the case here with Woody Allen's partial revival of his early film classic Take the Money and Run, with a class twist. Here Roy (Allen's character) is just as dimwitted as old Virgil of Take the Money but as an older and wiser man he knows when to quit (for a while anyway). So when Roy and his associates' attempted bank robbery is foiled by his bugling his wife's successful cookie shop cover operation sees them through the rough spots, again for a while. After a trip through the wilds of bourgeois New York the couple, after some disasters personal and financial, go back to the old tricks of the trade. I am not altogether sure what this says about class mobility in a democratic society but Roy please do not call me for your next caper. Funny, in Allen's slapstick way, in spots but not his best in this genre.

An okay idea that goes nowhere
This movie struck me as being similar in tone to Take the Money and Run, a much older Woody movie that he stars in as an inept bank robber. Small Time Crooks starts off the same, with Woody and his rag tag group of wannabe crooks who are working at tunneling underground to a nearby bank. The cookie bakery his wife, played by Tracy Ullman, is using as a front for the operation ends up becoming an overnight success which turns them into millionaires.

From that point on, the movie stopped being entertaining. It really does just come to a screeching halt. Practically nothing interesting happens from this point on with Woody and Tracy, and the rest of the cast is pretty much discarded with. There was far too much of Tracy in this movie and Hugh Grant just bored me everytime he was on screen. Jon Lovitz, Michael Rapaport and Tony Darrow are completely underused as Woody's gang. Elaine May actually turned out to be pretty funny as Tracy's dim bulb cousin and should have had more screen time.

I was really hoping to see more of the old Woody spirit in here, but it just felt really unimaginative. Not to say that he's completely lost it. Scoop is a good recent example of Woody recapturing that old magic again, but this one just missed the mark with me.

Woody Lite
Small Time Crooks is Woody Lite, well worth a three star rating. It is a fun little movie with some very engaging actors including Tracy Ullman and Hugh Grant. This is good fun, if not memorable. It hearkens back to the older Woody movies that are fun for the sake of being fun.