Safe Men

It's a few days before the bar mitzvah of Providence Jewish gangster Big Fat Bernie Gayle's son, and tailors are outfitting both father and son in matching warm-up suits for the service. But what should have been the funniest moment of the film is ruined by writer/director John Hamburg, who's already let us know about the formal athletic gear through some uninspired dialogue 15 minutes earlier. Jewish Mafia played out as comedy is so potentially ripe, it's easy to overdo. Putting a New York Islanders yarmulke on Bernie Jr. at his bar mitzvah is keen suburban Jew parody. The refrain of gangsters getting on Bernie Jr. to practice his Hebrew seems forced.

But if dialogue's not Hamburg's strength, his cast help him create lovable characters who, in their bumbling ways, make safe-robbing silly. Big Fat Bernie (Michael Lerner), his henchman Veal Chop (the ubiquitous Paul Giamatti), and rival Leo (Harvey Fierstein) are clueless, mistaking two piss-poor young musicians, Sam (Sam Rockwell) and Eddie (Steve Zahn), for expert thieves. Without a choice in the matter, these two quirky misfits -- the neurotic, romantic Eddie, and the easily agitated Sam -- unsuccessfully try to rob safes for Bernie. Bernie thinks Eddie and Sam are holding out on him, but he can't kill them -- after all, he promised his son they'd play at the bar mitzvah.

-- Mark Bazer