A return to outright comedy, Woody Allen's Small Time Crooks might be more welcome were it considerably funnier. After assembling an expert cast and unspooling a "hapless criminals" set-up already well-tested by other films (including Allen's proper directorial debut, 1969's Take the Money and Run), Allen lets the film languish thanks to lazily delivered jokes and slack direction. An endless rooftop argument between Allen and Ullman, for instance, seems to exist only for the sake of a remarkable, but irrelevant shot of a sunset. (As if to remind viewers to be impressed, when their characters later open a bakery, it's called "Sunset.") Michael Rappaport and Jon Lovitz manage some nice moments, but when they vanish, so does the film's energy. A trailer's worth of good gags does not a feature-length comedy make, and almost as if realizing this too late, the film's second half demands audiences to care about its none-too-affectionately rendered, one-dimensional characters, almost as desperate afterthought. The pairing of Allen and Elaine May, however, proves intriguing enough to demand a return engagement in a better film.