Welcome to Collinwood
Cert. 15
Director: Anthony Russo
Starring: William H. Macy, Isaiah Washington, Sam Rockwell
Runtime: 86 minutes
Anthony and Jo Russo’s loveable crime comedy Welcome to Collinwood is a loose remake of Mario Monicelli’s Big Deal On Madonna Street (1958). It’s the typical heist film that is remade every couple of decades- the previous one being Crackers (1984). However, despite being done before, Welcome to Collinwood proves to be a hilarious and frivolous flick that’s constantly fun and heartfelt. It even still encompasses some of the ‘old movie’ elements of style and atmosphere.
The tale takes place in a decrepit working class section of Cleveland or the ‘Beirut of Cleveland’ as its called in the film. The story is simple: a two-bit thief, Cosimo (Luz Guzman) is stuck in the clink, in the same cell as a man with a precious secret. His inmate is serving a life sentence and so tells Cosimo of how he constructed a breakaway wall between a pawnshop and an empty apartment. Cosimo only needs to let himself into the apartment, knock down the wall and break into the pawnstore’s safe, leaving him with $300,000.
Seems simple enough, but being in prison Cosimo has to turn to his girlfriend for help. She lets out the secret and soon a band of misfits and inept crooks are scheming together to do the job. The movie boasts a brilliant cast. Sam Rockwell is superb as an incompetent boxer who can’t last one round with a priest, William H Macy plays a broke photographer raising a baby while his wife’s in prison. There is Michael Jeter, as a bumbling old crook and Isaiah Washington as a well dressed but destitute member, whose role you never really understand. George Clooney even makes an appearance in a small but invaluable cameo as a disabled safe cracker.
With this mix of hopeless delinquents, things inevitably go wrong from the start. People fall in love, arms get broken, pants fall off…everything that can go wrong, does. The final act of the big heist does lose a little of the movie’s otherwise constant edge and pace. However, the vibrant cast and hilarious script makes up for it. The subplot of Rockwell and Jennifer Esposito’s love adds heart and humour to the story, ending the movie with the typical moral of love and happiness being more important than money.
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