Taglines: Explodes with big-time laughter.
Small Time Crooks movie storyline. New York City. Ray and Frances Winkler (the latter who goes by Frenchy, a former stage name) have been married for twenty-five years. Ray is a not too bright ex-con (bank robber) who has gone straight, going from one menial job to another. The one aspect of his former criminal life at which he was truly adept was cracking safes, something he taught Frenchy to do.
Garish Frenchy, a former stripper, does nails, she managing to have saved $6,000 in the process. Despite being obsessed with the lifestyles of the rich and famous, Frenchy prefers this respectable life over the prospect of getting rich through larceny and in the process having to visit Ray in jail. That may all change when Ray wants to use that $6,000 as seed money (one-third stake) with his two even dimmer buddies, Denny Doyle and Tommy Walker, each putting in the same amount, for a bank heist.
Ray’s plan is for them to rent a recently vacated storefront two establishments down from a bank, tunnel underground to the bank and break into the vault, he guesstimating there probably a $2 million total take. They need Frenchy’s support to do something with the storefront as a front, she deciding on a cookie shop as baking cookies is the one thing she knows how to do.
As they work on the plan, they end up changing focus and bring in three other partners solely out of circumstance: Benny Bukowski, a former prison mate of Ray’s whose specialty was insurance fraud (fires); May Sloane, Frenchy’s even dimmer cousin, who takes statements at their literal meaning; and local cop Ken DeLoach, who has more a business sense than a cop sense.
The refocused plan makes them rich beyond their wildest dreams. However, that wealth affects Ray and Frenchy in different ways, the latter who wants truly to be known as a cultured woman who not only is a benefactress to but a true connoisseur of anything associated with culture, such as the arts. That culture includes being known by her given name, Frances Fox.
Small Time Crooks is a 2000 American crime-comedy film written and directed by Woody Allen. It stars Woody Allen, Tracey Ullman, Michael Rapaport, Tony Darrow, Jon Lovitz, Diane Bradley, Cindy Carver, Crystal Field, Cindy Carver and Olivia Hayman. Ullman also received a nomination for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and May won the Best Supporting Actress citation at the National Society of Film Critics Awards.
Small Time Crooks (2000)
Directed by: Woody Allen
Starring: Woody Allen, Tracey Ullman, Michael Rapaport, Tony Darrow, Jon Lovitz, Diane Bradley, Cindy Carver, Crystal Field, Cindy Carver, Olivia Hayman
Screenplay by: Woody Allen
Production Design by: Santo Loquasto
Cinematography by: Fei Zhao
Film Editing by: Alisa Lepselter
Costume Design by: Suzanne McCabe
Set Decoration by: Jessica Lanier
Art Direction by: Tom Warren
MPAA Rating: PG for language.
Ristributed by: DreamWorks Pictures
Release Date: May 19, 2000
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