''The Crew'' is a 2000 American
black comedy
Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discu ...
crime film directed by
Michael Dinner
Michael Dinner (born May 20, 1953) is an American director, producer, and screenwriter for television.
Biography
Prior to his TV career, Dinner was a singer-songwriter and recording artist for Fantasy Records, where he released two albums, ''The ...
and starring
Burt Reynolds,
Seymour Cassel
Seymour Joseph Cassel (January 22, 1935 – April 7, 2019) was an American actor who appeared in over 200 movies and television shows, and had a career that spanned over 50 years.
Cassel first came to prominence in the 1960s in the pioneering in ...
,
Richard Dreyfuss,
Dan Hedaya
Daniel G. Hedaya (born July 24, 1940) is an American actor. He established himself as a supporting actor, often playing sleazy villains or wisecracking supporting characters. He has had supporting roles in films such as '' True Confessions'' (198 ...
,
Carrie-Anne Moss
Carrie-Anne Moss (born August 21, 1967) is a Canadian actress. After early roles on television, she rose to international prominence for her role of Trinity in ''The Matrix'' series (1999–present). She has starred in '' Memento'' (2000) for w ...
,
Jeremy Piven
Jeremy Samuel Piven (born July 26, 1965) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Ari Gold in the comedy series '' Entourage'', for which he won a Golden Globe Award and three consecutive Emmy Awards. He also starred in the Britis ...
and
Jennifer Tilly
Jennifer Tilly (born Jennifer Ellen Chan; September 16, 1958) is an American–Canadian actress and poker player. Known for her distinctive voice and comedic timing, she has been nominated for an Academy Award, two MTV Movie Awards and three Sa ...
.
Barry Sonnenfeld was one of the film's producers. The film is about four retired mobsters doing one last crime against a drug lord. It was released on August 25, 2000. ''The Crew'' garnered negative reviews and was a
box-office bomb
A box-office bomb, or box-office disaster, is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the production, marketing, and distribution costs combined exceed the revenue after ...
, grossing $13.1 million against a $38 million budget.
Plot
Four retired mobsters Bobby - the straight man leader, Bats - a cantankerous man with a short fuse and a pacemaker, Mouth - a silent ladies man many years past his prime, and Brick - a nice but dimwitted man plan one last crime to save their apartment at a retirement home (the owners are forcing them out with a rent increase so that the apartments can be rented to young, affluent
South Beach couples). The four steal a corpse from the mortuary to use as the "victim" in a staged murder scene. Unknown to them, the body was that of Luis Ventanna, the head of a Colombian drug smuggling ring. As a result of the "murder", many of the young renters leave and the four men are given cash and a rent discount by the complex to keep living there. Much of this money is spent on high living and women, which causes a young stripper, Ferris to discover that the four men staged the murder - while spending time with the normally-silent "Mouth," he reveals that his mouth is loosened by intimacy with women.
To keep the woman quiet, the four agree to kill her stepmother, but instead kidnap her and fake her death by setting fire to her mansion. In the process, they accidentally burn down the house of the drug-smuggler's son, who happened to live in a nearby mansion. Believing that someone is trying to usurp his power, the drug lord offers $100,000 to anyone who brings him the head of the man responsible. This results in a confrontation at the apartment, leading to the capture of a female police officer and her partner, one of the wiseguys, the young woman, and the stepmother. The other wiseguys manage to escape this conflict, and track down the men who kidnapped their friend.
They call in all of their still-living former associates from their active years and lay siege to the ship where the drug lord is holding his prisoners. They then turn the ship and the drug smugglers over to the police, along with a shipment of drugs. A truckload of
Cuban cigars
Cuban cigars are cigars manufactured in Cuba from tobacco grown within that island nation. Historically regarded as among the world's “finest”, they are synonymous with the island's culture and contribute nearly one quarter of the value of a ...
is taken by the men and used to make their apartment complex into "a retirement home for old wiseguys who are down on their luck."
A sub-plot of the movie involves Bobby's search for his long lost daughter, whom he hasn't seen since he was in his 30s and she was a small child.
Cast
*
Richard Dreyfuss as Bobby Bartellemeo
**
Casey Siemaszko
Kazimierz Andrew "Casey" Siemaszko (; born March 17, 1961) is an American actor.
Personal life
Siemaszko was born in Chicago and grew up on the city's northwest side. He attended Saint Ignatius College Preparatory School and graduated from the ...
as Young Bobby Bartellemeo
*
Burt Reynolds as Joey "Bats" Pistella
**
Matthew Borlenghi
Matt Borlenghi is an American actor, best known for his roles as Brian Bodine on '' All My Children'' from 1991 to 1993 and 1996, as Russ on ''The Jeff Foxworthy Show'', as Rich Casey on '' Police Academy: The Series'' and as Lyle on ''Cobra K ...
as Young Joey "Bats" Pistella
*
Dan Hedaya
Daniel G. Hedaya (born July 24, 1940) is an American actor. He established himself as a supporting actor, often playing sleazy villains or wisecracking supporting characters. He has had supporting roles in films such as '' True Confessions'' (198 ...
as Mike "The Brick" Donatelli
**
Jeremy Ratchford
Jeremy Ratchford (born August 6, 1965) is a Canadian actor. He starred as Nick Vera on the TV series ''Cold Case''.
Career
While in Canada, Ratchford played Marvel Comic book character Banshee in the live action TV super hero film ''Generati ...
as Young Mike "The Brick" Donatelli
*
Seymour Cassel
Seymour Joseph Cassel (January 22, 1935 – April 7, 2019) was an American actor who appeared in over 200 movies and television shows, and had a career that spanned over 50 years.
Cassel first came to prominence in the 1960s in the pioneering in ...
as Tony "Mouth" Donato
**
Billy Jayne
William Jayne Jacoby (born April 10, 1969), known professionally as Billy Jayne and previously Billy Jacoby is an American actor. His siblings, Robert Jayne, Susan Jayne, Laura Jacoby, as well as his half-brother Scott Jacoby are also actors.
...
as Young Tony "Mouth" Donato
*
Carrie-Anne Moss
Carrie-Anne Moss (born August 21, 1967) is a Canadian actress. After early roles on television, she rose to international prominence for her role of Trinity in ''The Matrix'' series (1999–present). She has starred in '' Memento'' (2000) for w ...
as Detective Olivia Neal
** Samantha Kurzman as Young Olivia Neal
*
Jeremy Piven
Jeremy Samuel Piven (born July 26, 1965) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Ari Gold in the comedy series '' Entourage'', for which he won a Golden Globe Award and three consecutive Emmy Awards. He also starred in the Britis ...
as Detective Steve Menteer
*
Jennifer Tilly
Jennifer Tilly (born Jennifer Ellen Chan; September 16, 1958) is an American–Canadian actress and poker player. Known for her distinctive voice and comedic timing, she has been nominated for an Academy Award, two MTV Movie Awards and three Sa ...
as Maureen "Ferris" Lowenstein
*
Lainie Kazan
Lainie Kazan (born Lainie Levine; May 15, 1940) is an American actress and singer. She was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for ''St. Elsewhere'' and the 1993 Tony Award for Best Featured Actr ...
as Pepper Lowenstein
*
Miguel Sandoval
Miguel Sandoval (born November 16, 1951) is an American actor of film and television.
Biography
Sandoval was born in Washington, D.C. He began working as a professional actor in 1975 when he joined a mime school in Albuquerque, New Mexico. ...
as Raul Ventana
*
Jose Zuniga
Jose is the English transliteration of the Hebrew and Aramaic name ''Yose'', which is etymologically linked to ''Yosef'' or Joseph. The name was popular during the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods.
* Jose ben Abin
* Jose ben Akabya
*Jose the Galile ...
as Escobar
* Mike Moroff as Jorge
*
Carlos Gomez as Miguel
*
Louis Lombardi
Louis Lombardi (born January 17, 1968) is an American actor known for his roles in ''The Sopranos'', ''Fantasy Island'', and ''24''.
Early life
Lombardi was born in The Bronx, New York City, the son of Louis Lombardi Sr.
Career
On telev ...
, Jr. as Jimmy "Whistles"
*
Frank Vincent
Frank Vincent Gattuso Jr. (April 15, 1937 – September 13, 2017) was an American actor. During a five-decade career, Vincent often portrayed mobsters. He was a frequent collaborator of filmmaker Martin Scorsese, appearing as Salvy in ''Raging B ...
as Marty
*
Louis Guss
Louis Guss (January 4, 1918 – September 29, 2008) was an American character actor with a long line of screen credits, having appeared in hundreds of TV series, feature films and stage productions, specializing in blue-collar ethnic roles, over ...
as Jerry "The Hammer" Fungo
Reception
''The Crew'' received negative reviews upon release, and was mostly noted for its similarities to ''
Space Cowboys
''Space Cowboys'' is a 2000 American adventure drama film directed and produced by Clint Eastwood. It stars Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, and James Garner as four older "ex-test pilots" who are sent into space to repair an old ...
'', which also involved four retirees who return for one last job (in that case, to go back into space). On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, it holds a approval rating based on reviews, with an average score of . The website's critical consensus states: "Though the four actors are good together, the jokes are stale and not funny." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, the film has an
average
In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...
score of 37 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".
Roger Ebert criticized the film for having an unbelievable premise with "desperate" slapstick and aggression, and characters that lack chemistry and individualism compared to the "heft and dimension" the main cast of ''Space Cowboys'' had, saying that "''The Crew'' unfolds as a construction, not a series of surprises and delights."
A. O. Scott of ''
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 ...
'' commended Dreyfuss and Hedaya for their performances and Fanaro's script for having an "inspired set piece" and "pretty funny" jabs at "ethnic stereotypes", but wrote that: "''The Crew'' is cobbled together in desperate obedience to the widespread Hollywood fallacy that the more plot a movie has, the more people will like it." ''
Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cu ...
''s
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Lisa Schwarzbaum (born July 5, 1952) is an American film critic. She joined ''Entertainment Weekly'' as a film critic in the 1990s and remained there until February 2013.
Career
She has been featured on CNN, co-hosted '' Siskel & Ebert at the Mov ...
gave the film a D grade, highlighting the script's "stereotyping" of its main leads, saying "
ch man's shtick swells into a frenzy of overacting in the name of aging that should have died with ''
The Golden Girls''."
It was a box office flop, grossing only
US$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
13 million off an estimated $38 million budget.
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crew, The
2000 films
2000 black comedy films
2000 comedy films
2000 crime films
2000s American films
2000s crime comedy films
2000s English-language films
American black comedy films
American crime comedy films
Columbia Pictures films
Films directed by Michael Dinner
Films produced by Barry Sonnenfeld
Films scored by Steve Bartek
Films set in 1968
Films set in 2000
Films set in Miami
Films set in New Jersey
Touchstone Pictures films