Crime Spree

That's not THE film of the year, that's not a very good action movie, but it's really amazing ! The humour of the actors is great, and the english speaking of Renaud, Depardieu is really funny. It refers to french culture, so there may be a few jokes hard to understand for americans, but, it's an american movie, so I suppose it will be appreciated there too. Harvey Keitel in his known maffia role, playing with his own image is something to see too !

This movie is a "must see".

All they needed was Jean Reno. Depardieu, Hallyday, Renaud, Taghmaoui and the lesser known, Freiss and Dray make up a gang of complete screw-ups who are set up to take a fall and wind up robbing Keitel, always great as a mafioso, and get involved in every kind of mess-up imaginable. The ending is charming and remindful of the ending in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Although the film is quite violent, and liberally sparkled with gallows humor, it comes off incredibly well as a dark comedy. Depardieu does well with comedy and his chemistry with the rest of the bunch is superb in all their antics.

If you haven't seen it, do. If you have, rent it again. I had to, in order to pick up on some of the laughs I missed while guffawing the first time around. Even if you don't speak French, the subtitles are cleverly apt and capture most of the witty dialogue among these veteran French actors.

A crew of fairly inept French burglars are given one last chance to impress their boss by pulling off a jewel robbery in Chicago. To help (or hinder) them, they are given the support of a couple of less savoury hoods and an incompetent Algerian. What follows is almost as predictable as the above might indicate - but not, I'm glad to say, without some quality laughs.

Crime Spree is NOT an excellent film. The script is flawed (the stolen car from the latin gang is a woeful subplot); the acting is too laid back at times and, as has been said below (on Jan 6th 2004), the director often can't decide on the cinematic style he prefers. But let's be balanced here - the director of this film is only as inconsistent as his above detractor. I mean - anyone who thinks the saving of the girl in the hallway is stolen from The Untouchables is being majorly tenuous and then to neglect to mention that De Palma actually (and totally) stole his particular scene from a much earlier movie is not really playing the game. By all means love or hate films - but don't force flawed arguments on those who disagree with you. Please.

The muffled phone sex scene is funny; the ariel shot of Marcel blasting his way through the hotel is excellent; the death scene of one of the gang members is poignant and the styles and verities that work serve the film well. It's not excellent cinema but it is amiable and of a welcome, off-beat quality that deserves appreciation and more respect than some might wish it. Then again - that's just my opinion. Each to their own.

I was just expecting a forgettable action/comedy farce to help me waste an evening. Crikey, was I surprised.

True, it begins 100% goofy, and by outward appearances it would seem like a brainless romp. Most of the gags are delightfully predictable. But as things unfold, the story, acting and outcome become increasingly intense, giving you much more than what you bargained for. Plot & character development is excellent, and you find yourself locking in with even the most trivial side characters. The plot itself doesn't fully materialize until the 2nd half, but that's the charm of the movie - that somehow all these seemingly random vignettes will converge on a single climax which it does brilliantly, explaining everything & closing the story in an unexpectedly intelligent way.

Some of the camera shots were really artistic, particularly the hotel chase scene through the different rooms (you just have to see it). Some of the gags were riotously funny--but you have to remember that this is a dark comedy, so a lot of these gags revolve around a surreal atmosphere of death & violence. Don't worry, though, the director purposely avoided gratuitous shots of blood & guts, opting instead for a more fairytale type of violence which fits perfectly.

THE MUSIC IS AWESOME. Lots of old school swing tunes which are delightfully ironic in a modern-day gangster film like this. Keep your eyes (& ears) out for the suspenseful Sergio-Leone-like showdown at the end where the suspense hinges not on guns or action but instead on what song is about to play on the jukebox! Again, it's hard to describe; you just gotta see it.

With its fast-paced yet smooth style, this film reminded me of Francis Veber's outstanding comedies ("Le dîner de cons", "The Valet" or "Les fugitifs" which also starred Gerard Depardieu), and in terms of comedic style it is much like the great gangster comedy "Suicide Kings" with Christopher Walken. Indeed Harvey Keitel's role in this film is much like Walken's in Suicide Kings; in both cases it's pulled off with a dark, menacing charm which will give you both chills and chuckles aplenty.

It's the oldest cliché in cinema, but this movie is the very definition of "fun". Stick around for the outtakes during the closing credits, and it's pretty obvious that the cast & crew had as much of a blast making this movie as you'll have watching it.

"Crime Spree" is a good movie. It's not a great one, but it's certainly very funny and quite entertaining. Its major problem is, though, that it's almost completely ripped off from either "Snatch" or "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels." Now, don't get me wrong: I enjoyed "Crime Spree" immensely and I do recommend it. However, don't go into it expecting to see something original or revolutionary, especially if you're a Guy Ritchie fan.

Writer/director Brad Mirman crafts a cute, international comedy with the requisite murder/theft/convoluted plot that has dragged Ritchie to the spotlight while bringing nothing new to the table. One disappointing aspect of "Crime Spree," though, is that it neither has Ritchie's blitheness nor his gravity in serious matters. When, in either "Snatch" or "Lock, Stock," the characters find out that they're screwed, we can feel just how screwed they are. In "Crime Spree," we don't know them well enough to comprehend the level of crap they're in. This is probably because Mirman doesn't take the time to establish the characters well enough to make us feel anything for them. We see that they're a likable group of guys who happen to be hapless thieves, and that's where the character development ends.

I think Mirman's biggest problem is that he underwrote the script. The scene that catapults the story is too unexpected and weird, because it involves a character too peripheral. It takes a huge leap of faith to think that something so minor could result in an onset of problems that big, because said peripheral character lacks the motivation to be involved in the plot in the first place.

Now, speaking of the plot. The plot has Ritchie's signature written all over it, only whereas Ritchie begins at the beginning, so to speak, when he introduces his characters, Mirman gets lazy and does expository dialogue instead. This is probably a mistake, since he has neither the style nor the substance to fill the holes well enough and make me ignore the sloth of his writing.

Lastly, Mirman's work suffers from a lot of side ordership. There are only two important groups in the forefront, but Mirman stuffs the movie with side characters that seem to distract from the development of the main characters. Whereas Ritchie somehow incorporates these side assemblies into the main plot, Mirman doesn't have the skill to do this, so I wind up feeling annoyed at the fact that some totally arbitrary people are stealing the screen time. I wish to Christ that, in the cases of both Ritchie and Mirman, or any of the numerous on-the-rise directors who want to follow in that vein, people learn that simplicity isn't always a bad thing. A movie doesn't have to have thirty protagonists to be good. Both "Snatch" and "Lock, Stock" had this problem, but in those movies, the side characters were at least somewhat amusing.

Despite these rather grave errors, "Crime Spree," as I said before, is a good film. It's light (though not light enough) with dark moments (that are, alas, not dark enough), but it works in its own odd, plagiarist way. Mirman has style in terms of shooting the thing and a couple of moments in the film work better than anything Ritchie has ever spawned. Also on the plus side in the Mirman column, he has assembled an excellent cast that can at least act.

Do I recommend it? As I said, absolutely. But if you're looking for something to blow your mind and you've not been living in a Luddite compound in terms of the Ritchie Revolution, "Crime Spree" just won't do it for you.