''Safe Men'' is a 1998 American
criminal comedy film
A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...
written and directed by
John Hamburg
John Liman Hamburg (born May 26, 1970) is an American screenwriter, film director and producer.
Personal life
Hamburg was born to a Jewish family in Manhattan, the son of New York City radio personality Joan Hamburg and Morton I. Hamburg. He g ...
(in his
directorial debut
This is a list of film directorial debuts in chronological order. The films and dates referred to are a director's first commercial cinematic release. Many film makers have directed works which were not commercially released, for example early work ...
), and stars
Sam Rockwell
Sam Rockwell (born November 5, 1968) is an American actor. He is known for appearing in independent films and also as a character actor portraying a wide variety of roles both comedic and dramatic in films such as '' Lawn Dogs'' (19 ...
and
Steve Zahn
Steven James Zahn (; born November 13, 1967) is an American actor and comedian. His film roles include ''Reality Bites'' (1994), ''That Thing You Do!'' (1996), ''Stuart Little'' (1999), '' Shattered Glass'' (2003), ''Sahara'' (2005), '' Chicken Li ...
as a pair of aspiring lounge singers who are mistaken for ace
safe crackers, and get mixed up with a
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...
ish mobster, Big Fat Bernie Gayle (
Michael Lerner) and Big Fat's intern, Veal Chop (
Paul Giamatti
Paul Edward Valentine Giamatti (; born June 6, 1967) is an American actor and film producer. He first garnered attention for his breakout role in '' Private Parts'' as Kenny "Pig Vomit" Rushton, leading to supporting roles in ''Saving Private R ...
).
Reception
In August 1998, ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' called it a "low-energy comedy with sufficient signs of willingness to stray off the beaten track to indicate that somewhere down the line its writer and director, John Hamburg, will create something far better."
Roger Ebert gave the film one star out of four, saying it "whirls wildly from one bright idea to the next, trying to find a combo that will hold the movie together. No luck."
Mick LaSalle
Mick is a masculine given name, usually a short form ( hypocorism) of Michael. Because of its popularity in Ireland, it is often used in England as a derogatory term for an Irish person or a person of Irish descent. In Australia the meaning broad ...
gave it "There's no dramatic urgency, no distinct point of view, no question of plot to keep an audience interested. All ''Safe Men'' has is the charm of the actors and the occasional friskiness of the writing. That's almost enough to keep the picture alive, minute by minute. Alive is not the same as thriving, but it's better than dead.
In March 2002,
The A.V. Club
''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...
began its review with:
The vast majority of direct-to-video films are not very good, lacking not only star power and budget, but ideas and imagination. Every once in a while, though, a movie is denied a proper theatrical release not because it's bad, but because it just isn't the sort of film for which a studio is willing to risk a multimillion-dollar advertising budget. Safe Men is one of these movies, a modest but engaging crime comedy.
A.V. Club also called the film a "sort of ''
Bottle Rocket'' Lite, sharing a deadpan, consistently sustained comic tone, as well as a palpable affection for its characters. Almost everyone in ''Safe Men'' is pathetic on some level, but first-time writer-director John Hamburg grants even his least significant characters a humanity that gives the film a sort of warm, fuzzy glow.
Songs from the film
DVD release
The movie was released on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
by
Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...
under the
Focus Features label on August 15, 2006 with new commentary features and ''Tick'', a short film by John Hamburg about independently contracted bomb defusers starring Michael Showalter.
Mill Creek Entertainment will release the Blu-ray version on July 12, 2022.
References
External links
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{{John Hamburg
Films directed by John Hamburg
American buddy comedy films
1990s English-language films
American crime comedy films
1990s crime comedy films
1998 films
Films set in Rhode Island
Films with screenplays by John Hamburg
Films scored by Theodore Shapiro
1998 directorial debut films
1998 comedy films
1990s buddy comedy films
1990s American films