Larceny (2004)

User Rating:

4.1/10   

Director:

Irving Schwartz

Writers:

David Bourla (writer)
Irving Schwartz (writer)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

Welcome to LA, where everybody has an angle but nobody has a clue.

Plot:

A young man from New Jersey comes to Los Angeles to visit his slightly crazy cousin and gets mistaken for a successful New York artist. |

Plot Keywords:

Beautiful Woman | Independent Film

Cast

Joshua Leonard	...	Nick
Andy Dick	...	Chris
Kate Jackson	...	Mom
Heavy D	...	Charles
Roselyn Sanchez	...	Angela
Michael Lerner
Tyra Banks	...	Herself
Priscilla Taylor
Joann Richter	...	Sondra
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Audrey Marie Anderson	...	Punk girl
Robert Bagnell
Troy Blendell	...	Art Guy
Ursula Brooks
Brooke Dillman	...	Rental car agent
Zrinka Domic	...	Girl Musician
Kathleen Mullan	...	Nick's entourage
Leah Murphy	...	Art Lady
Kirsten Nelson	...	Della
Sheeri Rappaport	...	Rhonda
Sebastian Siegel
Natalie Denise Sperl	...	Waitress
Oscar Torres	...	Lawyer / Gang Leader
Rosalinde Tropper	...	Club Goer
Bellamy Young	...	Kiki

MPAA:

Rated R for strong language.

Runtime:

USA:101 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:R

Company:

Larceny Productions

Ambitious Effort, but Fell Short of Greatness for Many Reasons

"Larceny" was a movie that could have been great. I bought this movie in the used section of my video store for only $3.00 (in a deal that netted me five movies for $15.00 total). When I make a purchase like that for a movie I've never heard of, I do sometimes have this expectation that this small, independent movie will blow me away. It sounds a bit elitist, but I get a lot of enjoyment from films that are shot on a shoestring budget which still manage to get B-list actors (except for Tyra Banks, who is undoubtedly an A-lister) who could turn out great performances. However, it goes without saying that "Larceny" fell short of my expectations for a number of reasons.

For one, anyone who wants to make a great movie should know that putting Andy Dick into it is just a bad idea. Andy Dick is just obnoxious, and he's not as funny as he thinks he is. He was on one good sitcom, "News Radio", and he was far from the best thing in the show. He plays a guy in this movie who is paranoid that a serial killer wants him dead, although the point of this kind of character, even in a comedy, is that you DON'T want him dead. Since he's Andy Dick, the whole idea of suspense is thrown right out the window.

Joshua Leonard plays Nick Peters, the lead character in this film who is the sane person in an otherwise insane situation. Leonard came to fame playing himself (sort of) in "The Blair Witch Project", but you'd never know it from seeing this film. Although Leonard is convincing in this role at times, he strangely reminded me of Owen Wilson. That would usually be a good thing, but Leonard came off to me as an Owen Wilson wannabe, as if the makers of this film thought, "Well, we couldn't get Owen Wilson for this part, so let's hire this lookalike without a broken nose".

Furthermore, the insertion of a serial killer seemed to me to be a very cheap plot device, especially with this killer being more like a ninja (costume and all). That whole premise appeared to me to be so hokey that by the time the killer was revealed, the whole so-called plot twist felt cheap and predictable. Additionally, I found myself rooting for this killer because most of the other characters were so completely unappealing I wanted them dead.

There were other inconsistencies in this film. Among them, you cannot be a serious investigative reporter and have the name Kiki, nor does that job title require you to break into someone's house. Second, Los Angeles is either the second or third largest city in the world, and everyone seemed to know each other in the film as if L.A. was just some sort of small town. Third, Roselyn Sanchez, whose beauty and talent actually exceed those of Jennifer Lopez, portrayed a big stereotype that really cheapened her character. She should have been the true light in this film, but her scenes were so shoddy and skeptic-inducing. Sanchez deserves to be in better pictures.

This movie, on the whole, felt more like a big knockoff of better movie like "Pulp Fiction", "True Romance", and "Get Shorty" among other films. There was unnecessary swearing, gratuitous and unrealistic violence, a lazy plot and storyline borrowed from made-for-TV movies, and half baked character development. It had promise, but it's not a good movie and I can't quite recommend it.