Crackers
Screening on Film
Directed by Louis Malle.
With Donald Sutherland, Jack Warden, Sean Penn.
US, 1984, 35mm, color, 91 min.
With Donald Sutherland, Jack Warden, Sean Penn.
US, 1984, 35mm, color, 91 min.
A remake of the 1958 Italian comedy Big Deal on Madonna Street, Crackers transposes the setting from Rome to San Francisco but keeps the group of quirky and clumsy criminals who plan a safe-cracking caper. The eccentric gang of thieves (including veteran actor Sutherland and then-newcomer Penn) attempts the burglary of a local pawnshop (owned by Warden) only to bungle the job in a series of escalating misadventures that comically highlight the ineptitude of the crew. In what may be construed as a self-reflexive joke, Malle includes Wallace Shawn as a crook who never stops eating.
