Pechvögel

The film is a very funny parody of classic heist movies. Whatever can go wrong will go wrong. There is a lot of humour coming from the differences between the rather goofy characters but also a lot of slapstick which I like. The cast shines. Sutherland gives a great performance of a character who is not quite as cool as he thinks he is. Jack Warden plays the grumpy pawn shop owner. The end is bitter sweet when Warden's character realizes that the only friends he has are the ones who wanted to rob him. I think it's a genuinely funny comedic jewel. I don't really get all the dislike for it. It is not Citizen Kane but as a comedy it works.

I was amused watching the stellar cast waltz through this film. Any movie with supporting characters including a traffic cop prostitute and a pimp who carries a baby, will catch my attention.

Although released in 1984, this film has a 70s feel to it that I enjoyed.

Louis Malle is best known as one of the doyens of the French New Wave. After directing a number of movies in his native country, he came to the US and gave us "Atlantic City" and "My Dinner with Andre". One of his lesser known movies is 1984's "Crackers", about a group of down-and-out people plotting a heist. This is not at all the sort of movie that I'd expect from Malle, especially having seen "Au revour, les enfants" (set in Nazi-occupied France).

Anyway, it's an okay comedy; only a handful of scenes are laugh-out-loud funny. Donald Sutherland, Sean Penn, Wallace Shawn,* Jack Warden, Trinidad Silva, and Christine Baranski put on fine performances (not that I'd expect otherwise). That cast turns it into a link between the Hunger Games franchise, "Dead Man Walking", the Toy Story Franchise, a number of Woody Allen movies, "UHF" and "The Good Fight". Co-star Larry Riley died of AIDS resulting from promiscuity, while co-star Charmaine Woodard played Samuel L. Jackson's character's mom in "Glass".

*My parents met Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory when "My Dinner with Andre" got released. The four of them met in a restaurant and had a philosophical conversation about the movie.

"Crackers" falls into that category of films that have failed quite inexplicably - helmed by a great director, starring a cast of assured veterans (Sutherland, Warden) and talented newcomers (Penn, Baranksi) and written by the screenwriter of one of the best films of the eighties ("Cutter's Way"). Then why is it that no one talks about the film anymore? Firstly, the film has been made far more successfully on two other occasions in the guise of "Big Deal on Madonna Street" and then recently "Welcome To Collinwood". Secondly, Malle must have been going through an eighties dance music phase when he made the film because it is effectively ruined by an utterly dated and abysmal soundtrack - with a proper film score it would have been a far better film. Lastly, Sutherland gives what is probably his most broad and embarrassingly unfunny performance in the lead, subsequently hindering any sympathy for his character. There are other qualms (what exactly is the purpose of Baranski's character, lets throw in a slut for some wacky comedy?) but it is nevertheless still quite watchable. Shawn, who would collaborate with Malle on the acclaimed films "My Dinner With Andre" and "Vanya on 42nd Street", is very funny as the forever-eating Turtle and Penn is amusing in a dumb hood role he would practically resume for "We're No Angels", another film with a great director, writer and cast that would be a critical and commercial failure. No film made by Malle could be truly bad, and this isn't, but it is neither as quirky or funny as it wants to be.

The general public greatly disappoints me. There is no way on Gods' green Earth this film wins a zero in any movie review media. This film was in the list of an online platform channel (Roku to be exact). It is a "feel-good" happy ending comedy, so how can you go wrong with that? I being in a nostalgic '80s film mood, and I knew it had to be enjoyable if Donald Sutherland was in it, and a fun '80's good deal when Christine Zalinksy (sp?) plays. The film starts out a predictable theme, but it does not detract from the storyline at all, in fact I found myself looking forward to what would be an unsurprising closure (probable happy ending, a little romance, and the inevitable resolution). The crooks of this film are the wise, crafty ones: "Ramon" played well by the 1980s "Latin gang member character" Trinidad Silva (tragically killed by drunk driver in 1988 I believe) - comes up with a preliminary plan using Sean Penn as " Dillard"-with a pathetically bad Southern brogue. "Broadway" character: Larry Riley plays a pimp that is forever carrying around baby Tyrone. Check out the darling outfits Tyrone is sporting in scenes he steals every frame. Viewers please have the courtesy to at least acknowledge how well this was directed. Ignore crummy accents, stereotypes and ENJOY the story for what it is: a feel-good, fun and memorable little movie.