While the world's mainstream cinema is busy churning out on- screen heroes, Woody Allen is again doing the opposite in his new comedy, Small Time Crooks . As the title suggests, a bunch of crooks in a low-class region of Manhattan make up the bulk of characters in the film, which kicks off as a crime farce and ends up as a romantic comedy. These poorly educated, hopelessly dumb people laughably think they are street-wise. At the centre is dishwasher Ray Winkler, an ex-convict in his late 40s, played by the director himself. In addition to his bad qualities, Ray suffers from an inferiority complex, and his overbearing wife Frenchy (Tracy Ullman) knows when to help boost his ego. Sometimes he even manages to charm her with his grand get-rich-quick plans so that his wife can lead an extravagant lifestyle. The fact that Ray pulled off just one failed robbery which landed him in jail for two years does not seem to deter him. This time he plans to tunnel into a neighbourhood bank from an adjoining, closed-down pizza shop, using Frenchy's skills at making cookies as a front. Ray and his three even dumber cohorts, Denny, Tommy and Benny, who call him 'the brain', make a mess of digging the tunnel and they end up losing a lot of money. But Frenchy's cookies prove to be a phenomenal success and soon the couple are millionaires. The plot turns into a Pygmalion story, or its contemporary version of Pretty Woman , with Frenchy struggling to transcend the class boundary. She hires gentlemanly art-dealer David (Hugh Grant) to help reform her manners through art and literature. Frenchy falls for him, and she breaks up with Ray because he finds himself more comfortable with his old identity. But David turns out to be a fortune-hunter when he abandons Frenchy right after she is swindled out of her fortune by her accountants. Instead of selling pretty faces, Allen presents great comic possibilities with his mean characters. Even Grant's usual charm is submerged among others' performance. Allen's role as the neurotic bumbler is not unfamiliar. In fact, this one in many ways looks like it belongs more to his heydays in the 1970s and is better appreciated by those who like old films. Small Time Crooks is showing at UA Pacific Place and Broadway Cinematheque. Graphic: YPFRGLO Graphic: F22GLO
