OxfordPress.com

Grade: B

Verdict: Allen remembers how to make us laugh in this sweet culture-clash comedy.

Details: Starring Tracey Ullman, Woody Allen, Elaine May and Hugh Grant. Written and directed by Allen. Rated PG for profanity. 1 hour, 35 minutes.

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Review: "Small Time Crooks" is a small-change Woody Allen film. It's also the writer-director's funniest in years, free of the sour self-absorption of his late-1990s movies (especially "Celebrity" and "Deconstructing Harry").

Allen plays ex-convict Ray Winkler, who's tired of his dishwashing job and hits on a new plan to strike it rich: With money saved by his manicurist wife, Frenchy (Tracey Ullman), he wants to rent an empty restaurant and use it as a front while he and criminal cronies tunnel from its basement to the bank located a few doors down.

Frenchy, a big-haired blonde erupting out of lime-green stretch pants, initially ridicules Ray's plan. She reminds him of his previous "two-year mandatory vacation" behind bars and henpecks him in front of his motley crew (including Jon Lovitz and a cheerfully dumb Michael Rapaport). But it's Frenchy herself who turns out to be the indispensable member of the gang.

When she and Ray strike it rich, and not in the way you expect, "Crooks" switches from a character study of incompetence to a culture-clash comedy. Production designer Santo Loquasto and costume designer Suzanne McCabe cram the screen with hilarious examples of pricey tackiness as Ray and Frenchy surround themselves with brass objets d'art, garish jewels and an exasperated chef (former designer Isaac Mizrahi, in a cameo) who concocts haute cuisine--to Ray's disgust.

"If I can't get a cheeseburger, what's it all mean?" he grumbles, preferring to watch TV and drink a beer rather than mess with finger bowls and four different forks. But for Frenchy, wealth is a chance to narrow the gap between her downtown roots and her uptown windfall. "I want to be the real thing," she explains. Which leads her into the orbit of a dapper art dealer (Hugh Grant at his foppish best), who agrees to teach her about the finer things in life.

"Small Time Crooks" is ultimately as lightweight as one of the stories Allen occasionally publishes in The New Yorker. But its giddy offhandedness is part of its immense charm. It helps that Allen, who's never really plausible as any sort of crook, recedes into the background as the movie goes on. He makes room for Ullman, who's a pitch-perfect character chameleon who can ground even her silliest role in genuine feeling.

As good as she is, though, the movie belongs to Elaine May whenever she's on-screen. A writer-director herself ("A New Leaf"), she plays Frenchy's cousin May, easily the dimmest creature in a movie loaded with low-watt bulbs. With a slight lisp and deadpan earnestness, May steals all her scenes while somehow managing to make the character as sweet as she is stupid.

The last third of "Crooks" sags a little, with a protracted party sequence that's not as funny or suspenseful as it needs to be. But you'll feel like cutting Allen some slack, just for wanting to make us laugh again.

— Steve Murray, Cox News Service