Movie » Comic Criminal Movies

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Billy Wilder's classic comedy stars Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis as a pair of unemployed musicians who inadvertently become witnesses to the St. Valentine Day's Massacre. To escape the wrath of the gangsters Joe Curtis and Jerry Lemmon are forced to hit the road in drag taking the only jobs available with an all-girl band bound for Miami. Enroute both men fall for lead singer and blond bombshell Sugar Kane Marilyn Monroe but are unable to fulfill their desires for fear of revealing their identity. Joe tries to get around this by adopting a third identity for seduction that of a shy millionaire who sounds strangely like Cary Grant. Meanwhile Jerry has his own problems fighting off the advances of Osgood E. Fielding a real millionaire hypnotized by hisher charms.

The Coen brothers have done it again. Mixing in Leninist philosophy mistaken identity crazy characters a kidnapping plot and a deep love of bowling they have unleashed upon an unsuspecting world the many glories of THE BIG LEBOWSKI. Jeff Bridges plays Jeff Lebowski known as the Dude a laid-back easygoing burnout who happens to have the same name as a millionaire whose wife owes a lot of dangerous people a whole bunch of money--resulting in the Dude having his rug soiled sending him spiraling into the Los Angeles underworld. The film is beautiful to look at especially the scenes in the bowling alley which feature a vast array of bizarre characters--including Steve Buscemi John Turturro Sam Elliott and the movie-stealing riotously funny John Goodman as the Dude's crazy best buddy. As usual in Coen brothers films BARTON FINK RAISING ARIZONA the dialogue is hysterically warped; the plot is confusing complicated and kinetic; the soundtrack is virtually another character; and the acting is weirdly stellar. THE BIG

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Brash small-time con man Steve Martin meets fake prince in exile Michael Caine in this outrageous comedy of backstabbing elaborate lies and dirty tricks as the two men battle for the prime fleecing territory of a European resort. A wager between the two over duping an American heiress out of her money sends the stakes higher as the loser must leave town. However a wily swindler also searching for good territory might have other plans for the two men.

The world of a compulsively neat investigator is turned upside down when he's forced to team up with the only witness to a crime - a drooling junkyard dog who wrecks his home career and budding romance.

RETURN is the third installment in the popular Pink Panther series and a reunion for director Blake Edwards and comedian Peter Sellers who had not made a Panther film since A SHOT IN THE DARK a decade earlier. This time the bumbling French detective Inspector Clouseau is reluctantly called back into service by Chief Inspector Dreyfus Herbert Lom when someone swipes the infamous Pink Panther diamond from the museum in Lugash. The prime suspect is the smoothly aristocratic jewel thief Sir Charles Lytton Christopher Plummer aka the Phantom. Clouseau creates his usual comic mayhem in an assortment of European watering holes as he attempts to track down the jet-setting criminal. While Lytton who is on this rare occasion innocent of the crime in question joins in the pursuit of the real criminals to avoid arrest his lovely wife Claudine Catherine Schell leads the myopic Clouseau on a wild-goose chase. As usual Clouseau's creative methods of deduction drive Inspector Dreyfus ever closer to the brink of insanity. Sel

A gambling ship owner plans to scam a virtuous young woman, only to fall in love with her and go legit.

In this classic Italian spoof, a gang of bungling burglars set their eyes on a local pawn shop, but the elaborate robbery never comes off. The would-be crooks--including a nearly senile safecracker--are too easily distracted by life's joys and passions. The silent-film intertitles and jazz score create a marvelous send-up of Hollywood caper films.