Small Time Crooks Mission: Impossible 2

...Whatever the reason, believe what her moronic husband and of Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday...

...E tion fight scenes, and the fiery demoli- much rhythmic foot stomping and too tion of countless automobiles, many of many aerial shots of Sydney's famed Paul Baumann is Commonweal's executhem (happily) shiny new sport utility Opera House...

...True to his higher sponsibility, as well as an accessible and receptive leader with an inclumission, Hunt must use Hall, featured sive and collaborative style...

...S but his famous nebbish looks true to form, Allen has found an ideal Whether May is revealing Ray's bankand wimpish physique did convey a cer- female counterpart in Tracey Ullman, robbing scheme to the police or charmtain elfish charm, a Groucho Marx-like the versatile comic actress who plays ing a prospective suitor with a near-lulasciviousness, and a nervous little-guy's Ray's wisecracking wife, Frenchy...

...Allen is oddly lifeless even when Crooks relies on the sheer stupidity of its ward heroes is trite sloganeering, as are the oneliners are as sharp as the lines in characters...

...Do Run, Play It Again, Sam, and other in- numbskulls surrounding Ray, and brings working-class Americans really want to spired moments in higher lunacy, where on a smarmy Hugh Grant to romance emulate the cultural pretensions and social manners of the rich...

...he knows when to muss up Cruise's hair and when to part it neatly...

...This drama of sovict and aspiring bank robber, whose very fully inhabits her part as a tough-talking cial climbing and nouveaux riches seems incompetence saves him from one calami- working-class New Yorker who can't almost antique, a slightly updated version ty after another...

...Woo, considered a virtuoso by some, keeps the carnage piling "Experimenting up, the camera moving in vertiginous with tradition arcs and sweeps, and the hero and heroine tantalizingly apart...

...A sure moneymakof the school's internal and external constituencies, incorporating the er, he figures...

...In Small Time and Frenchy have what might politely the picture with the blissed-out expresCrooks, Allen needs at least some measure be called a bantering relationship, with sion of Michael Dukakis behind the of these contradictory qualities, but his Frenchy's hilarious and devastating put- wheel of an army tank...

...Cruise, who also produced this formulaic James Bond-like thriller, hasn't lost any The larcenous couple of his boyish charm or any megawattage Commonweal 20 July 14, 2000 from his multimillion-dollar smile...

...Betraying not an ounce of human high school located in Blue Ash, a residential community just outside decency, he plans to kill thousands by of Cincinnati, Ohio...

...Ambrose fur- Kristina D. McMillen at Brigham Hill Consultancy, 214-871-8700, mcmillen@brighamhill.com rows his brow terrifically upon learning that his former mistress has teamed up with his arch-rival...

...In other words, since 1898...

...In the movies, simstallment of the series the latex masks plete with thundering flamenco dancers, ilar extravagance only fuels childish fanare used more promiscuously than ever, pyrotechnical religious processions, and tasies of omnipotence and Manichaean and the directing duties have been hand- Moorish arches...

...In this in- sequence that takes place in Seville, re- of social solidarity...

...As lains in the Mission: Impossible movies, It is tempting to think of movies like Ethan Hunt, the dextrous leader of a he doesn't seem to understand how Mission: Impossible 2 as a version of the team of secret agents battling the forces hard it is to say no to Tom Cruise...

...Seville seems the more notions of how evil exists in the world...

...Fans will be re- even hold Allen's interest, as he quickly simpler pleasures, is a page out of Hollyminded of Bananas, Take the Money and dispenses with the crew of bumbling wood's version of the Depression...

...Allen dred perfectly turned jokes into ninety May) so ditzy that she makes Yogi Berra was never a pretty picture, minutes of unpretentious plotting...

...Nothing personal, you understand, just business...

...Like all the vilCommonweal 2 1 July 14, 2000...

...Also and Casey Stengel sound like geniuses...

...But that ity vehicle...

...Ray's idiot friends (including the wonderfully wan Jon Lovitz) are sorely missed when the action moves TO CATCH A THIEF upscale and uptown...

...who are also funny is not easy, but nei- can't make us happy...

...In an era when popular culture threatens to sweep away all such distinctions, the situation seems reversed, with the wealthy desperate to appear hip, if not hip-hop...

...Writing stupid characters the film's platitudes about how money his face...

...crass and deceitful is hardly news...

...That the rich are as the hapless Ray...

...Ullman's Frenchy is a small tri- no Broderick Crawford...

...Much has been written about Cruise's mercurial coiffure and the film's stunningly beautiful damsel-indistress/jewel thief, Thandie Newton...

...Small Time Crooks' & 'Mission: Impossible 2' Allen's abandonment of the film's Three Stooges-like subplot does allow him to give more screen time to Elaine omething has happened to the director/writer/star packed a hun- May, who plays a character (named Woody Allen's face...

...Sometimes violence is a of the martial arts, the film's slow-mo- wish may be simply the result of so good thing...

...He and directing efforts to strengthen the school's financial resources and is the former lover of Ethan Hunt's new aid to students...

...In this regard, location llirrcta:- } Gra,znoor Mission: Impossible 2 has some luck with PO Box :300 ~r Dougray Scott, who plays the sinister Garri,on, NY 10524-030 Sean Ambrose, a former colleague of 914 424 36 l Hunt's who has gone over to the dark side...

...and betray Frenchy, who aspires to the C R E E better things in life once the couple can Paul Baumann afford them...

...They don't bitions to Ray's stolid allegiances to the of Allen's early years...

...It is no sur- up with the trauma of Ray's and Frenchy's is probably too old to bring off the role of prise that Ullman, vaguely reminiscent efforts, once they have money, to make it Ray Winkler, a comically inept ex-con- of Mia Farrow in Broadway Danny Rose, into the Social Register...

...Woo's influ- more time ducking in and out of dark that sacred suburban icon, the sport utilence is evident in Ethan Hunt's mastery alleyways in that venerable city...

...He's just a mouthpiece umph as well as a small-time crook...

...paramour Nyah Hall, the aforemenWe seek a prudent risk-taker who empowers others to take retioned jewel thief...

...Ray natic weather report, she walks through determination to succeed...

...For information about th(- Franciscan Friar and SiMrrs of the ;honennemL comact: This genre depends on the manifest villainy of its bad guys...

...tive editor...

...potlatch...

...ed over to John Woo, who made a name intriguing location, and one wishes the Still, Cruise and Woo are to be complifor himself with violent but balletic ac- Mission Impossible "team" had spent mented for their wanton destruction of tion movies in Hong Kong...

...There is a brief extravagant sacrifice was an enactment patented peel-off latex masks...

...That for the clever jokes and nicely turned di- Much of the humor of Small Time they are not as soulful as the film's wayalogue...

...face fails him...

...In the potlatch, of course, the erac, thanks to Mission: Impossible's a back lot in Burbank...

...vehicles...

...Grant, even more than usual Allen seems mere- his even more dimwitted buddies are however, is no William Holden and Allen ly to be pretending, merely standing in up to...

...He to sputtering indignation...

...peaking of popular culture, what more is there to say S about Tom Cruise and Mission: Impossible 2, this summer's biggest hit...

...Ambrose is ruthless in the way great cartoon meanies are ruthless, right down to his gruesome habit of paring Ursuline Academy of Cincinnati other people's fingernails a knuckle or two short with a handy device he oth- President erwise uses for snipping off the ends of Ursuline Academy is a Catholic, four-year college-preparatory girls' cigars...

...There are also some nifty motorcycle stunts that children should not attempt at home...

...releasing a lethal virus for which only The President will be responsible for communicating with all he has the antidote...

...throughout in a series of fetching outfits, For more information contact L. Lincoln Eldredge and to bait his trap...

...Tens of millions of dollars are of evil on an inexhaustible expense ac- Most of Mission: Impossible 2 is set in burned up for the moviegoing public's count, Cruise is still rappelling down Australia, although it could easily have vicarious pleasure and psychological skyscrapers and aping Cyrano de Berg- been California, the coast of Maine, or catharsis...

...But Ambrose also has a Catholic and Ursuline traditions in the everyday life of the Academy, more human, if not a gentler side...

...The whole class dySmall Time Crooks is a return to the ther are those characters likely to hold namic, from Frenchy's naked social amverbal high jinks and slapstick comedy our interest for very long...

...There's too much basset downs reducing her benighted spouse Too much of Small Time Crooks is taken hound and not enough imp in it now...