Crackers

Universal. Director Louis Malle; Producer Edward Lewis, Robert Cortes; Screenplay Jeffrey Fiskin; Camera Laszlo Kovacs; Editor Susanne Baron; Music Paul Chihara;; Art Director John J. Lloyd

Donald Sutherland
Jack Warden
Sean Penn
Wallace Shawn
Larry Riley
Trinidad Silva

A mild little caper comedy with plenty of sociological overtones, Crackers comes as a letdown from director Louis Malle. With a flimsy plot that is perhaps rightly treated in a throwaway manner, film basically consists of a wide assortment of character riffs which are offbeat enough to provide moderate moment-to-moment amusement but don't create a great deal of comic impact.

As in dozens of tenement-set plays from Street Scene on, virtually all the action takes place within or very near the central setting, in this case a pawnshop owned by shameless profiteer Jack Warden. His buddy, Donald Sutherland, is out of work, and all but a few of the other characters make up a rainbow microcosm of today's unemployed.

(Color) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1984. Running time: 92 MIN.

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