Sticky Fingers

"Sticky Fingers" stars Helen "Supergirl" Slater and Melanie "thirtysomething" Mayron as a couple of quirky but poor New York City street musicians who come upon a satchel filled with ill-gotten money.

Slater, who is stunningly pretty, also shows a surprisingly deft comic ability. And Mayron, an often dull actress, holds her own well in a film she co-wrote.

The supporting cast is also made up of beautiful comediennes, including the always adorably funny Carol Kane and the late Danitra Vance, the first black female "Saturday Night Live" cast member, who lost her life to breast cancer in 1994. I still swoon at her smile.

Late character actress Eileen Brennan also stands out as the leads' impatient landlord.

Though the movie was written and directed by women, co-writer/director Caitlin Adams is no Susan Seidelman or Joan Micklin Silver. Her director's hand is unsure. She allows what should be a humorous take on female empowerment to be undone by protagonists who are classic screwball-comedy bubbleheads, and a plot that devolves into a standard caper film.

But I love it for its '80s style, its funny leads and supporting cast (I'd watch Carol Kane read the phone book), and the funky way it captures my beloved New York City, in a similar to, but somewhat lesser way than Seidelman's "Desperately Seeking Susan" did.

But see, I've always found "Desperately Seeking Susan" a bit of a bore. "Sticky Fingers" is flawed, to be sure. But it's enjoyable enough to watch all the way through.

For me, more than once.

STICKY FINGERS is a slight "caper comedy" with a twist: It was directed by a w woman (Catlin Adams), who co-wrote the film with Melanie Mayron, who co-stars in the film with Helen Slater. Mayron and Slater play a couple of hipster doofus women named Leila and Harriet but who go by hipper Lolly and Hattie. They are classical musicians trying to make it in New York but end up playing in the park for spare change. A friend asks them to stow a bag while she goes out of town, and the gals are shocked to find it contains $900,00. After their apartment is robbed and their violin and cello are taken, they "dip" into the bag to buy new instruments (they have an audition coming up). The exhilaration they feel when plunking down more than $90,000 for new instruments goes to their heads and they can't resist going on a massive shopping spree. Of course the money belongs to the mob and strange men start following them around town.

Certainly not a classic, but this is a fine little comedy with some great moments. Thugs and cops aside, the cast is made up of mostly women. Eileen Brennan plays the cranky landlady and Carol Kane is her nutty sister. Loretta Devine plays the money woman, Danitra Vance plays their street-wsie friend, Shirley Stoler plays a neighbor, and Gwen Welles plays a weird stalker who follows Mayron and her boyfriend (Christopher Guest) around the city. Contemporary reviews were really snarky and dismissive and really missed the comic energy Mayron and Slater bring to this romp.

Mayron had reinvented herself by losing weight and that frizzy hairdo she sported in films like HARRY AND TONTO and GIRLFRIENDS. She had landed on the hit TV series THIRTYSOMETHING (and won an Emmy) but she retained that wry sense of always being the outsider but accepting that fact.

Worth a look if you can find it.

I was a little taken aback by the vote rating and other viewers' comments on "Sticky Fingers" - surely, it was better than a 4.5, and surely it wasn't (as another reviewer said) 'f******' - so I watched it again, and sure 'nuff, it was actually funny. You just have to be able to get the jokes.

I found "Sticky Fingers" a great way to waste an hour and a half... Melanie Mayron and Helen Slater are fine as the orchestra musicians who are forced to play in parks in order to keep a roof over their heads, and when even that doesn't bring in the three months' overdue rent... I won't spoil the plot for you, but the two main characters are asked to keep a whole grocery bag of illegally gotten money for a druggie friend (Danitra Vance) of theirs, and succumb to the temptation to, well, dig into the bag.

They save themselves from eviction by paying the long over-due rent to their landlady (Eileen Brennan), then... well, everything after that is wonderfully convoluted and very entertaining, a series of comic nightmares set in the seamy back streets of New York. Carol Kane gives us a great subplot and earns her money, something "name" actors don't always manage to do in recent movies.

Check it out next time you have an hour and a half free and nothing better to do. You'll laugh, I almost guarantee it. (OK, so maybe if you aren't into intellectual humor, this won't be your thing, but everyone else will laugh.) In fact, this is the sort of thing that the IFC satellite TV channel picks up on - if anyone there is reading this, drop a note in the suggestion box at work, huh?

I love this film, I'm still waiting for the day when its going to be released on DVD.

such a fantastic script, well written and totally enjoyable. the characters are brilliant and the acting has some of the best comic timing I've seen in a movie ever!

Helen slater is truly a remarkable actress and Eileen Brenna is hilarious.

the one liners are to die for!

I cant stress to people enough to go and find this movie and just sit back and enjoy!

its a winner, a good 2 hour pop corn muncher filled with laughs and more laughs!

(the Jewish joke told at the end is pure gold!)

If you're not a fan of the 80s, and you need to be a particularly strong fan, or of one of the two leads, there's nothing about this film to recommend.

The story, as others have said, is dull, almost an afterthought to the basic notion of the characters and the idea of making a slightly manic comedy. I watched it to about an hour, hoping it would turn a corner, a twist would occur or it would somehow kick into gear but no... It's not unwatchable, it's just dull. It goes by. It goes by with bits of running around madly, lingering shots of feet at strange angles, bits of shouting madly but I didn't get a real feel of energy or manic fun, it just came across as forced. Needless to say also, there was nothing to laugh at particularly. A bit of mild amusement here or there but nothing more.

Don't be fooled by the mention of feminism by the way, all it means in this case is that almost all the principal cast is female. If anything, it's actually cloying... Two female leads, fine, excellent, the drug dealer is female, okay, their landlord is a landlady, alright, their friends are female, okay, the only other person we particularly see who lives in the same building, oh, female... I wasn't on the lookout for that but after a while it felt like a conscious decision had been made to have the film cast that way and it felt, again, a bit forced and cloying.

On the plus-side, if you are a fan of 80s fashions and culture, there is plenty to see and if you're a fan of Helen Slater, she's fun and enjoyable to watch. There's also some screen-time for Carol Kane, which is great, but not enough...

Overall: 3/10. If you're a huge fan of the 80s, Helen Slater and Carol Kane, you could maybe stretch it to a 5 because of them, although there's still the fact it's a comedy which isn't funny, which hinders it substantially. If you're not a fan of those things, you might as well make it 0 because there's nothing much else to enjoy here.