Rating: 
Summary: TV quality mob comedy
Review: "The Crew" is a comedy that attempts to be "Goodfellas" plus forty years. Four aging wiseguys have retired to Florida and they spend most of their time reminiscing about the glory days. Eager for some action, they cook up a number of bumbling schemes that make them feel like they are back in the rackets. The screenplay is mildly droll, but lacks anything that might be considered hilarious. It is a bit more entertaining if you happen to have grown up in any metro New York Italian neighborhood, since the actors do a good job of capturing the colloquialisms and attitudes one might have found there.The film has a TV feel about it, which is not surprising given the fact that the writer is Barry Fanaro ("Benson", "Golden Girls", "Archie Bunker's Place") and the director is Michael Dinner ("The Wonder Years", "Chicago Hope", "The Street"). Also working against the premise is the fact that we have been inundated with Mafia humor ("Analyze This", "Mickey Blue Eyes", etc.) lately and the novelty is wearing off. The acting is okay, but not great. Richard Dreyfuss is reasonably good as the narrator and leader of the motley crew. Dan Hedaya and Seymour Cassell are also wryly humorous as his henchmen. Burt Reynolds is probably the weak link here. Carrie-Anne Moss has a minor role that doesn't give us much by which to judge her talents. The best performance is probably by Jennifer Tilly, who plays her standard airhead sex-bomb character, which says a lot about the general mediocrity of the film. This occasionally amusing dark comedy has a veteran cast but fails to elevate itself above sitcom class humor. I rated it 5/10. Add a point or two if you like mob humor or grew up in New Jersey in the sixties.
Rating: 
Summary: Geriatric Goodfellas
Review: "The Crew" is comprised of Richard Dreyfuss (Bobby), the brains of the outfit, Burt Reynolds (Bats), the hot-tempered muscle, Seymour Cassel (Mouth), the quiet ladies man and Dan Hedaya, who plays "The Brick." He's not stupid but, as Dan says in his interview segment, "I guess his thought process is a little different from most people." The movie starts out with a flashback of them as four young wiseguys pulling a job, then flashes forward to them as four old men sitting on a porch. Bat turns to Bobby and complains, "You said the good times were gonna last forever." Bobby replies, "I thought we'd be dead by now!" The story concerns them trying to save their rundown, Miami Beach apartment house (the Raj Mahal) from going condo. Each of their schemes backfires and gets them further into trouble with the local drug lord and the police. The plot twists hold one's interest throughout the film, but the quirky lead characters really carry this picture. "The Crew" is a movie that proves that Mafioso are people too!
Rating:
Summary: Geriatric Goodfellas
Review: "The Crew" is comprised of Richard Dreyfuss (Bobby), the brains of the outfit, Burt Reynolds (Bats), the hot-tempered muscle, Seymour Cassel (Mouth), the quiet ladies man and Dan Hedaya, who plays "The Brick." He's not stupid but, as Dan says in his interview segment, "I guess his thought process is a little different from most people." The movie starts out with a flashback of them as four young wiseguys pulling a job, then flashes forward to them as four old men sitting on a porch. Bat turns to Bobby and complains, "You said the good times were gonna last forever." Bobby replies, "I thought we'd be dead by now!" The story concerns them trying to save their rundown, Miami Beach apartment house (the Raj Mahal) from going condo. Each of their schemes backfires and gets them further into trouble with the local drug lord and the police. The plot twists hold one's interest throughout the film, but the quirky lead characters really carry this picture. "The Crew" is a movie that proves that Mafioso are people too!
Rating: 
Summary: An offering you can refuse
Review: Age may be serving a knuckle sandwich to the geezer gangsters in this wheezing comedy, but once a wiseguy, always a wiseguy. So when Crew's quartet of retired mobsters finds itself facing eviction from a Miami residential hotel that's about to be gentrified, they fake a murder out front to scare off potential new tenants. Complications -- way too many and too few of them funny -- ensue. Character development here is as shaky as the health of these emeritus mafiosi. Each is defined solely by his nickname, thus "Bats" (Reynolds) violently erupts, "Mouth" (Cassel) barely speaks, "The Brick" (Hedaya) is thick headed, and Bobby (Dreyfuss), well, he's so smart he doesn't need a tag. Plentiful prostate jokes aside, Crew has a few good gags, including an homage to Martin Scorsese's balletic marathon shot from Goodfellas of hoodlums making their way into a nightclub. Here, the shot is wittily duplicated when our boys try to sneak into a deli's early-bird special for seniors.
Rating:
Summary: As harmless as a basket of kittens
Review: and thats why it gets three stars,for entertaining without being foul-mouthed or violent. I mean, I love violent, foul-mouthed movies as much as the next guy or gal, but rarely do you see a movie marketed to adults as mild as this. Its as toothless as some of its extras. The only prurient element in the movie is Jennifer Tilly's stripper character, who is busting (oh, look, I made a pun) out of a sequined bikini most of the movie. Aging mobsters try to feel young again by making some trouble. Fugheddaboutit if you dont have a family, but rent it for your own crew if you have one.
Rating: 
Summary: Put Away Your Preconceptions
Review: Before I saw "The Crew," I didn't have many expectations of it. To my surprise and pleasure, "The Crew" turned out to be much better than a mere formula movie about oldsters. Four former mob "goodfellas" (played by Burt Reynolds, Seymour Cassel, Richard Dreyfuss and Dan Hedaya) live on the edge of poverty in South Miami. Their art-deco neighborhood is rapidly gentrifying, and soon their apartment is going to go condo, which they can't afford. Immediate action is required. What do goodfellas do? They "whack" (kill) people, of course. And there is killing in this surprise of a movie, but not the type you'd expect. This is a fast-paced, zippy movie that happens to have a lot of black humor. You know who the heroes are, but it takes almost until the end of the film, but where and how the enemies get their due is nicely surprising. All the performances were just fine. Early in the movie, Burt Reynolds, reduced to fast-food work to make ends meet, growls at a customer, "Special orders DO upset us," and promptly loses his job. The film is ripe with situational wit of that type. The relatively unknown Seymour Cassel had to carry a lot of the acting, and he held his own along with the three other stars. A special plot twist involves former singer (and now character actress) Lainie Kazan, the wife of a restaurant owner who runs into the Crew at an inopportune moment. Her scenes are played way over-the-top and in this context, it works brilliantly.
The Crew is certainly not the best gangster comedy ever, but it holds up well. I can heartily recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Put Away Your Preconceptions
Review: Before I saw "The Crew," I didn't have many expectations of it. To my surprise and pleasure, "The Crew" turned out to be much better than a mere formula movie about oldsters. Four former mob "goodfellas" (played by Burt Reynolds, Seymour Cassel, Richard Dreyfuss and Dan Hedaya) live on the edge of poverty in South Miami. Their art-deco neighborhood is rapidly gentrifying, and soon their apartment is going to go condo, which they can't afford. Immediate action is required. What do goodfellas do? They "whack" (kill) people, of course. And there is killing in this surprise of a movie, but not the type you'd expect. This is a fast-paced, zippy movie that happens to have a lot of black humor. You know who the heroes are, but it takes almost until the end of the film, but where and how the enemies get their due is nicely surprising. All the performances were just fine. Early in the movie, Burt Reynolds, reduced to fast-food work to make ends meet, growls at a customer, "Special orders DO upset us," and promptly loses his job. The film is ripe with situational wit of that type. The relatively unknown Seymour Cassel had to carry a lot of the acting, and he held his own along with the three other stars. A special plot twist involves former singer (and now character actress) Lainie Kazan, the wife of a restaurant owner who runs into the Crew at an inopportune moment. Her scenes are played way over-the-top and in this context, it works brilliantly.
The Crew is certainly not the best gangster comedy ever, but it holds up well. I can heartily recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Put Away Your Preconceptions
Review: Before I saw "The Crew," I didn't have many expectations of it. To my surprise and pleasure, "The Crew" turned out to be much better than a mere formula movie about oldsters. Four former mob "goodfellas" (played by Burt Reynolds, Seymour Cassel, Richard Dreyfuss and Dan Hedaya) live on the edge of poverty in South Miami. Their art-deco neighborhood is rapidly gentrifying, and soon their apartment is going to go condo, which they can't afford. Immediate action is required. What do goodfellas do? They "whack" (kill) people, of course. And there is killing in this surprise of a movie, but not the type you'd expect. This is a fast-paced, zippy movie that happens to have a lot of black humor. You know who the heroes are, but it takes almost until the end of the film, but where and how the enemies get their due is nicely surprising. All the performances were just fine. Early in the movie, Burt Reynolds, reduced to fast-food work to make ends meet, growls at a customer, "Special orders DO upset us," and promptly loses his job. The film is ripe with situational wit of that type. The relatively unknown Seymour Cassel had to carry a lot of the acting, and he held his own along with the three other stars. A special plot twist involves former singer (and now character actress) Lainie Kazan, the wife of a restaurant owner who runs into the Crew at an inopportune moment. Her scenes are played way over-the-top and in this context, it works brilliantly.
The Crew is certainly not the best gangster comedy ever, but it holds up well. I can heartily recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Not very Funny
Review: Burt Renyolds and Richard Dreyfuss play two old con-men, together with some of their old friends, they accidently destroy a drug lord's home in this very unfunny film, with jokes that look like they came from reading Donesbury.
Rating:
Summary: Love the song sung by Joe Pesce
Review: Enjoyed the movie - light and entertaining. Especially like the song "Old Man Time" sung by Joe Pesce at the end of the movie. Does anyone know if it's available on CD?
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