Five guys, one safe. No brains. (Welcome to Collinwood (DVD))

Member Name: cswann

Product:	Welcome to Collinwood (DVD)
Date:	19/11/05 (248 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny, great cast

Disadvantages: George Clooney's role is little more than a cameo (if you're a fan of his)

First off – where’s Collinwood?

Answer - It’s a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, in the U.S.

But this is not a leafy, woody suburb, no - more of a faded, dingy railway town that's seen better days of employment and better days of, well, just about everything.

None of which is that relevant, except that it all helps you to understand how the characters in “Welcome to Collinwood” could be so desparate, so hopeless, and so, well, plain idiotic at times.
This is a low-budget comedy, but the fact that it comes from Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney's Section Eight production group (see also "Ocean's Eleven" this year's "Insomnia") is definitely a good sign.

George Clooney featured highly in the posters, and the trailer, for this movie, and anyone might assume he is the star of the movie, but any of his fans who went to see it just because of Clooney's appearance may have been a little bit disappointed. Mainly because he doesn’t really appear for many minutes, all told, in the entire picture.

Myself, I’m not a Clooney fan, especially, so it makes no odds to me. The rest of the cast is top-notch:
Sam Rockwell, William H. Macy, Luis Guzman – all of whom are well worth a visit to the cinema, in my opinion.

Guzman plays Cosimo, a thief who's in prison but has a big secret - a "bellini", a once-in-a-lifetime deal, not to be missed.
This is when it all starts, really, with Cosimo hearing about a way to break into a pawnbrokers’ shop and steal the contents of a safe - $300,000 dollars.
He and another not-very-successful thief, Toto (played by the late Michael Jeter) call on Riley (played by Macy) for help to pull the job.
What Cosimo really needs is someone who is willing to confess to his crime and do his time - a "mullinsky", apparently - all the slang words are doubtless completely made up but the work very well in the movie.
Macy’s character is an excellent one – he’s a single Dad, (well the truth is, his wife's in prison as well) doing his best to raise money to feed his baby, which always seems to be strapped to his front in one of those papoose things. Not your average criminal, then.
Anyway, word gets around about the big job, and there's soon plenty of no hopers clamouring to get a piece of the action.

Rockwell plays Pero, a charming man, a useless boxer, who thinks he’s something.
Funny how a lot of their names end in O – not that significant (it’s not that kind of movie) but you get the idea that there’s a pattern here.
Then there’s Leon (played by Isaiah Washington), who desperately wants top improve things for his sister Michelle. And the Italian, Basil (played by Andrew Davoli), handsome, a dreamer and a bit of a gigolo, but also very short of cash.
Basically we have a motley crew of not-too-bright criminals.

We know from the very beginning roughly how badly things might go wrong, because the very first scene in the movie features the four ruffians all looking worse for wear – well, as though they’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards, and a burning hedge at that. Not that I’m going to tell you how exactly the sorry tale goes – and you’ll probably guess easily enough as you’re watching. That’s not the point, it’s the bungled attempts along the way that this movie is all about. It’s could perhaps be described as the thinking man’s slapstick, or an exaggerated version of Palookaville. It’s all a bit old-fashioned, in many ways – 70s TV cop shows, sitcoms, Laurel And Hardy, they are all brought to mind.

"Welcome to Collingwood" is directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, who also wrote the screenplay, although it is actually a remake of an Italian comedy classic from 1958, called “Big deal on Madonna Street”. All of which probably helps to explain why the movie has a timeless feel - it could easily have been set in any time from the 30s to the present day and still seemed to fit in.
The poster used on the trailers (a depalidated “Welcome to Collinwood” sign) is very apt for the movie as a whole – and I mean that in a loving way.
It is genuinely hilarious at times, and although it possibly starts to lose its way towards the end, there's plenty of fun to be had along the way.

Only 86 minutes long, which is on the short side, but just right for this kind of movie.

Certificate 15

The DVD is available very cheaply - try blahdvd.com (£6.99) or Choices Direct (£5.99)

Summary: Good old-fashioned heist comedy