Line #5 Film/SmallTimeCrooks


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Small_Time_Crooks_8983.jpg]]
2
3	One of Creator/WoodyAllen's zanier latter-day films, the 2000 comedy ''Small Time Crooks'' follows a former criminal named Ray (Allen) and his wife, Frenchy (Creator/TraceyUllman), poor but happy in their UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity apartment. Ray hatches an elaborate scheme: Rob a bank by buying the building next door and tunneling under it. To explain their presence, Ray has Frenchy set up a cookie shop as a front. Two days later, the tunneling is getting nowhere, but the cookie shop is a huge success!
4
5	While the plot shares some similarities with Creator/SJPerelman's play ''The Night Before Christmas'' (itself adapted to the screen as the 1942 comedy ''Larceny, Inc.'' with Creator/EdwardGRobinson), in true Woody Allen style this film is less about the heist itself and more about how Ray and Frenchy's relationship progresses in the face of their newfound wealth and status.
6
7	----
8	!!Tropes:
9
10	* AuthorityInNameOnly: Tommy becomes the company's chairman of the board, but doesn't do anything more important than hiring a plumber to fix the office building's toilets.
11	* BigApplesauce: Set in New York City, as usual for Allen.
12	* BrickJoke: Benny, a career arsonist, becomes the fire safety inspector for Sunset Cookies.
13	* TheCaper: The final quarter of the film is a jewel heist. [[spoiler:They end up stealing the fakes they intended to replace the real one with. Frenchy "steals" a priceless royal jewelry that technically isn't stealing because ''she'' bought it; she just took it back from the gigolo she gave it to.]]
14	* ChekhovsSkill: Several people comment on Frenchy's cookies before she sets up the shop. [[spoiler: Ray's teaching Frenchy in how to crack safes saves the day, too.]]
15	* CloudCuckoolander: May is a major source of humor in the film.
16	-->'''May:''' Then the lights begin to flash. Little pinpoints of light. Then my tongue turns black and I can't swallow.\
17	'''Dr. Henske:''' Really?\
18	'''May:''' The diagnosis is Parkinson's, but they think it could be the Ebola virus, or mad cow disease.
19	* TheConvenientStoreNextDoor: Ray and Frenchy use a cookie store front while they try to tunnel across the street to the bank. They fail to tunnel their way into the bank, but the cookies are so popular, it turns them into instant millionaires.
20	* CutLexLuthorACheck: [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed]] and [[AvertedTrope averted]], as French's cookie selling becomes the big score, not the bank heist.
21	* DumbassHasAPoint:
22	** When Ray and May try to steal a socialite's necklace, they mix up the real one and the copy they plan to replace it with. Ray says that they can't take both necklaces because they've been seen acting suspiciously in close vicinity to the safe and will be the prime suspects if the necklace just disappeared.
23	** Denny, a man who thinks ''Ray'' is a genius, is made head of advertising for the cookie company and focuses on putting ads in his favorite pornographic magazines, claiming that it will make readers associate the lust they feel with the cookies. Judging by how successful the company becomes, this idea seems to be working.
24	* FakeRealTurn: The cookie shop is set up as a false front from which Ray and his gang can tunnel into the bank next door, but it actually draws successful business, while the bank robbery fails miserably.
25	* FailureHero: Ray. Frenchy, too, but she manages to save the day with one of the skills she learned from Ray. [[spoiler:Safe cracking.]]
26	* GeniusDitz: May is astonishly dumb, a master of ComicallyMissingThePoint, but gives some BrutalHonesty with her TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to Ray near the end.
27	%% * GoldDigger: David, a British gigolo.
28	* HauteCuisineIsWeird: Ray wants no part of food "that leaves a slime trail" and just wants a cheeseburger.
29	* InnocentlyInsensitive: May.
30	-->'''Ray:''' I get a bad vibe about this guy, David. It's my street instinct, but I just don't trust him.\
31	'''May:''' Yeah, I know why. Because he's younger than you are, handsomer than you are, he's much taller than you are, he's smarter than you are, he's much more exciting than you are...\
32	'''Ray:''' [[SarcasmMode May, don't feel obligated to pull any punches with me. I can take it.]]
33	* InsuranceFraud: One of Ray's friends sent two of his children to college with money from that kind of fraud and was planning another insurance fraud when he decided to set this plan aside to help Ray with a bank robbery.
34	* LetOffByTheDetective: Ken, a cop who buys cookies from the store, figures out the gang's robbery scheme and catches them in the act of tunneling into the wrong building. He lets them go once they promise to stick to the cookie business [[BuyThemOff and offer him a cut of it.]]
35	* LineOfSightName: The cookie business is called "Sunset Cookies" after Ray convinces Frenchy to be in on the scheme while on the roof during a beautiful sunset.
36	* NouveauRiche: Ray and Frenchy are the very definition! Even the caterer seems offended.
37	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: May gives Ray a thorough dressing down late in the film.
38	* SmallNameBigEgo: Ray thinks he's a genius, and notes everyone in prison called him "The Brain". His former cellmates insist it was an IronicNickname.
39	* StupidCrooks: And small time, too. It's one of the rare movies in which Allen plays a complete idiot.
40	* UnderStrangeManagement: A group of criminals rent TheConvenientStoreNextDoor to a bank, and run a cookie shop as a front while they try to tunnel into the vault. While the tunneling operation is a failure, the cookies are an unexpected hit, and the gang tries to make a career of it. Amusingly, a career arsonist ends up as the fire safety inspector.
41	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Denny, Benny, Tommy, and Ken all get jobs with the cookie company after the FakeRealTurn, but disappear after a couple of scenes, and it isn't shown what happens to them [[spoiler:after the company goes bankrupt.]]
42	* WhereItAllBegan: Ray and Frenchy end up from where they started from, but with a new appreciation for each other.

Context Film / SmallTimeCrooks