Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

JaydoDre Crime Spree is a dark crime comedy about a group of French thieves getting into trouble in the US after a job goes sour and this movie is f-ing awesome! It is amazing that this film got stuck under the radar and almost faded into obscurity.Let us start with two notable participants: Harvey Keitel and Gérard Depardieu. These two people are a treat to watch and comedy suits them well, but it is nice that they do not overstay their welcome in scenes and there is a large supporting cast who also do a good job, though some do it better than others. One of the protagonists is Albert Dray, who is an obscure actor outside of France, but he gets a good amount of screen time and his appearance as a short nice guy really adds to the character of the main group to which he belongs. Another notable appearance is Abe Vigoda as a crime boss. He is not on screen for long but for long enough to be awesome. There is a Hispanic gang member that wasn't even part of any jokes but made me laugh with just his facial expressions and hand gestures.The only problem is that the main protagonists are not very fleshed out. There are quite a few of them and you do not learn much about their background. One of the thief protagonists dies mid-movie and I wasn't even sure who it was and when he entered the movie.The dialogue is smart and flows well. The jokes are subtle but still good. Sometimes they hit you 30 seconds after the fact. Sometimes they only work if you understand a little bit about the movie's background or the cultural differences. Perhaps this is another one of the movie's flaws, probably prompting a lot of the humour to go over people's heads. The humour would work if all the people involved were really famous and the cultural nuances were all well-known stereotypes, but the movie is at times too subtle and obscure for its own good.Let me tell you something and see if you are still on board. Half of the movie is in French with English subtitles. If you are already hesitating about this movie based on this information then it is probably not for you. It is that kind of movie with a foreign taste and a special peculiarity.Camera work is notably interesting. There is for example a continuous shot of a group of guys moving from room to room as the camera follows them from above going over the walls. No cuts. There are smart shots like panning over into the sky of one city and then panning back down to see another city.In general, you can sense the effort behind the film. There is a scene at one point in which one of the thieves needs to steal a wallet from a stranger. The thief bumps into the guy on a street and makes a move for the wallet. Now, how would this end in your typical American crime comedy? The thief would skilfully pull out the wallet (although slapstick may be involved) and the victim would not notice it and would keep on walking. In this movie however, the victim does notice and naturally starts running after the thief, though in the end the thief still gets wallet. This short chase scene did not need to be added. It takes more effort to add it. However, it does feel more natural, realistic and in line with the movie's premise that the thieving protagonists are bad at what they do.I heard about the similarities with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels but I watched that movie, and although it does run in much the same way, I like Crime Spree better. I did not laugh once during Lock Stock, but I did during this movie. And there are so many movies like Lock Stock now that you cannot call it plagiarism. It is just its own genre now.Crime Spree is a smart movie, perhaps a little too smart at times. It does not bring any revolutionary changes to the crime comedy formula, but is funny and well-made and is most definitely recommended.

cornelius A most entertaining movie with that greatest gift – humour, to which should be added a gratifyingly complex plot. It's been some time since I came across such an enjoyable film and hence am at a loss why there have been so few votes and a rating of 6.4, I give it a minimum of 8.Our team is a group of pretty incompetent French robbers who are sent to do a job in Chicago, where they are beset by a variety of complications. I say team since a fair number are involved which makes it impossible to draw all the characters in depth, all the more so since there are so many other people involved.Give it a try and enjoy it for what it is instead of trying to draw parallels with other pictures.

fixyourcat "Crime Spree" is a good movie. It's not a great one, but it's certainly very funny and quite entertaining. Its major problem is, though, that it's almost completely ripped off from either "Snatch" or "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels." Now, don't get me wrong: I enjoyed "Crime Spree" immensely and I do recommend it. However, don't go into it expecting to see something original or revolutionary, especially if you're a Guy Ritchie fan.Writer/director Brad Mirman crafts a cute, international comedy with the requisite murder/theft/convoluted plot that has dragged Ritchie to the spotlight while bringing nothing new to the table. One disappointing aspect of "Crime Spree," though, is that it neither has Ritchie's blitheness nor his gravity in serious matters. When, in either "Snatch" or "Lock, Stock," the characters find out that they're screwed, we can feel just how screwed they are. In "Crime Spree," we don't know them well enough to comprehend the level of crap they're in. This is probably because Mirman doesn't take the time to establish the characters well enough to make us feel anything for them. We see that they're a likable group of guys who happen to be hapless thieves, and that's where the character development ends.I think Mirman's biggest problem is that he underwrote the script. The scene that catapults the story is too unexpected and weird, because it involves a character too peripheral. It takes a huge leap of faith to think that something so minor could result in an onset of problems that big, because said peripheral character lacks the motivation to be involved in the plot in the first place.Now, speaking of the plot. The plot has Ritchie's signature written all over it, only whereas Ritchie begins at the beginning, so to speak, when he introduces his characters, Mirman gets lazy and does expository dialogue instead. This is probably a mistake, since he has neither the style nor the substance to fill the holes well enough and make me ignore the sloth of his writing.Lastly, Mirman's work suffers from a lot of side ordership. There are only two important groups in the forefront, but Mirman stuffs the movie with side characters that seem to distract from the development of the main characters. Whereas Ritchie somehow incorporates these side assemblies into the main plot, Mirman doesn't have the skill to do this, so I wind up feeling annoyed at the fact that some totally arbitrary people are stealing the screen time. I wish to Christ that, in the cases of both Ritchie and Mirman, or any of the numerous on-the-rise directors who want to follow in that vein, people learn that simplicity isn't always a bad thing. A movie doesn't have to have thirty protagonists to be good. Both "Snatch" and "Lock, Stock" had this problem, but in those movies, the side characters were at least somewhat amusing.Despite these rather grave errors, "Crime Spree," as I said before, is a good film. It's light (though not light enough) with dark moments (that are, alas, not dark enough), but it works in its own odd, plagiarist way. Mirman has style in terms of shooting the thing and a couple of moments in the film work better than anything Ritchie has ever spawned. Also on the plus side in the Mirman column, he has assembled an excellent cast that can at least act.Do I recommend it? As I said, absolutely. But if you're looking for something to blow your mind and you've not been living in a Luddite compound in terms of the Ritchie Revolution, "Crime Spree" just won't do it for you.

Fugi I have to say I've been a frequent visitor of the IMDb and I cannot believe some of the comments said about this movie. Rather than judging this movie by how funny it was, they try and find little problems that they can come and complain about. I honestly feel this was a good movie. There was many bad movies made in Canada, but this is not one of them. Maybe it was because I didn't expect much, but I laughed really hard and have been talking about this movie for quite some time now. It far exceeded my expectations, therefore, for those who want to watch a good and funny movie, I definitely recommend it. I gave it an 8 out of 10. And for those who gave this movie a below 6 rating, I think you should alter your way of rating a movie.