THE CREW / (2000) * (out of four)
Michael Dinner's new mob parody, "The Crew," just isn't funny. It is as plain and simple as that. The movie is so engrossed in its concepts that it forgets the concepts are not what make people laugh, but the execution of those concepts. Various humors contained within the film provide one-liners and visual sight gags evolving from age, death, sex, and testosterone, not many that are effective. While I enjoyed Michael Dinner's direction style and some of the nifty camera angles, he fails miserably on bringing inspiration to the production. "The Crew" is one of the worst comedies of the year.
The film takes place in South Beach, Miami, where four old men are about to be evicted from their apartment due to rising rent costs. Little does the landlord know, however, the senior citizens used to be slick, wiseguy criminals Bobby Bartellemro (Richard Dreyfuss), Joey "Bats" Pistella (Burt Reynolds), Mike "The Brick" Donatelli (Dan Hedaya) and Tony "The Mouth" Donato. These guys are beginning to realize life is passing them by and plan to concoct a scheme to place them in their past shoes.
The movie has little development of anything. The characters, who are potentially interesting, are introduced with short, specific scenes featuring each in a disjointed incidence in which they react to; their various behaviors are what portray their personalities. Because of the lack of decent prefaces, the character's intentions are unclear throughout the story. Thus the story struggles to pull itself through a brief running time that feels much longer than it is. The producers seemingly inject sight gags along the way for commercial appearance, and the ones that are funny already have been milked to death in TV ads and theatrical trailers.
Bobby, Joey, Mike, and Tony come up with an idea to save their home. They steal a body from the local morgue, blow its head off with a shotgun, and leave it in the lobby of their hotel, thus the seemingly murderous event will lower the popularity of the hotel and keep the rent in check.
Several other key characters come into play. There is a South American drug lord named Raul Ventanna (Miguel Sandoval), who thinks someone's trying to send him a threatening message, ex-lovers and detectives Olivia Neal (Carrie-Anne Moss) and Steve Menteer (Jeremy Piven) who are investigating the homicide and believe the old men to be potential suspects, and a local prostitute/stripper, Ferris (Jennifer Tilly), who blackmails the four guys into murdering her stepmother, Pepper (Lainie Kazan).
The plot is not interesting or engaging mainly because I never cared about any of the unexplained characters. This is the kind of movie in which the ideas are potentially amusing, but the implementation of those ideas are accomplished quite poorly. The plot is frustrating, injecting stale contrivances like an estranged relationship between a father and daughter that feels trite and boring. This movie is like a lacking "Mafia" with a third of the energy.
In a movie as deprived as "The Crew" an inquisitive audience member anxiously awaits the conclusion, not only because they are overcome with pleasure that the pitiful waste of time is finally over, but also because the ending usually brings a sense of accomplishment to a production, regardless of how horrible. However, that sense of accomplishment is also absent from "The Crew." This film's ending resolves itself in a fashion that is entirely unconvincing and abstract. If you are looking for a funny movie about old men doing things out of their league, go see the funny and poignant "Space Cowboys": a movie that shows just how horrible this one is.
Michael Dinner's new mob parody, "The Crew," just isn't funny. It is as plain and simple as that. The movie is so engrossed in its concepts that it forgets the concepts are not what make people laugh, but the execution of those concepts. Various humors contained within the film provide one-liners and visual sight gags evolving from age, death, sex, and testosterone, not many that are effective. While I enjoyed Michael Dinner's direction style and some of the nifty camera angles, he fails miserably on bringing inspiration to the production. "The Crew" is one of the worst comedies of the year.
The film takes place in South Beach, Miami, where four old men are about to be evicted from their apartment due to rising rent costs. Little does the landlord know, however, the senior citizens used to be slick, wiseguy criminals Bobby Bartellemro (Richard Dreyfuss), Joey "Bats" Pistella (Burt Reynolds), Mike "The Brick" Donatelli (Dan Hedaya) and Tony "The Mouth" Donato. These guys are beginning to realize life is passing them by and plan to concoct a scheme to place them in their past shoes.
The movie has little development of anything. The characters, who are potentially interesting, are introduced with short, specific scenes featuring each in a disjointed incidence in which they react to; their various behaviors are what portray their personalities. Because of the lack of decent prefaces, the character's intentions are unclear throughout the story. Thus the story struggles to pull itself through a brief running time that feels much longer than it is. The producers seemingly inject sight gags along the way for commercial appearance, and the ones that are funny already have been milked to death in TV ads and theatrical trailers.
Bobby, Joey, Mike, and Tony come up with an idea to save their home. They steal a body from the local morgue, blow its head off with a shotgun, and leave it in the lobby of their hotel, thus the seemingly murderous event will lower the popularity of the hotel and keep the rent in check.
Several other key characters come into play. There is a South American drug lord named Raul Ventanna (Miguel Sandoval), who thinks someone's trying to send him a threatening message, ex-lovers and detectives Olivia Neal (Carrie-Anne Moss) and Steve Menteer (Jeremy Piven) who are investigating the homicide and believe the old men to be potential suspects, and a local prostitute/stripper, Ferris (Jennifer Tilly), who blackmails the four guys into murdering her stepmother, Pepper (Lainie Kazan).
The plot is not interesting or engaging mainly because I never cared about any of the unexplained characters. This is the kind of movie in which the ideas are potentially amusing, but the implementation of those ideas are accomplished quite poorly. The plot is frustrating, injecting stale contrivances like an estranged relationship between a father and daughter that feels trite and boring. This movie is like a lacking "Mafia" with a third of the energy.
In a movie as deprived as "The Crew" an inquisitive audience member anxiously awaits the conclusion, not only because they are overcome with pleasure that the pitiful waste of time is finally over, but also because the ending usually brings a sense of accomplishment to a production, regardless of how horrible. However, that sense of accomplishment is also absent from "The Crew." This film's ending resolves itself in a fashion that is entirely unconvincing and abstract. If you are looking for a funny movie about old men doing things out of their league, go see the funny and poignant "Space Cowboys": a movie that shows just how horrible this one is.