A bunch of bungling crooks led by a career criminal (Woody Allen) devise the perfect crime by leasing a storefront and tunneling into the bank vault next door. However, when their cookie business front becomes a massive success and the bank job falls through, they become rich beyond their wildest dreams and Allen's uncultured wife (Tracey Ullman) hires a suave but disingenuous cad (Hugh Grant) as a Henry Higgins-like instructor. Made at a time when Woody was beginning to go out of fashion and entering a so called slump, Small Time Crooks is as funny and diverting as any of his light comedies and contains a hysterical Ullman performance who is given some of the movie's funniest lines.
*** out of ****
