magnedgr As is often the case with Louis Malle, capitalism's absurdity is highlighted. This is perhaps not his very best, but I thought I would give it a ten, just because I thought 4.9 to be too low, I got more from it than that. However, if you're not open to the idea that capitalism is absurd, certainly 4.9 might seem like a good rating and you wouldn't get that much out of it.Capitalism is about fooling and being fooled, but who or what really gets fooled ultimately? My notion is that it's always capitalism that ends up being and is constantly fooled - by life.This film lets you laugh at capitalism and it feels good.Capitalism is alienating - like many of Malle's films, this film is about unalienating.As I see it: There are some wonderful moments where you just laugh: I may have laughed most just because I found a somewhat old woman very funny, just hilarious. And it was just a brief scene, but it just made me laugh longer than the scene lasted (stayed with me sort of). This is what's needed for a good comedy, isn't it? Small things that make you laugh more than bigger things, in part because they're small. There's not a lot of that, but it's there and is perhaps all the more funny as a result. In addition there are bigger things, notably involving a glass roof.I won't say that much more. Basically, if you're an anticapitalist like me, surely you'll enjoy it. If you're a capitalist - hell, who knows, you might change, life's bigger than capitalism, no?

roy3837 While most sane adults will find this movie pointless and without any merits,I still would like to point out a great deal of movies released to this day are far more repugnant...This movie features Sean Penn in his pre-Madonna youth,and Sutherland in his prime.OK,I admit that as a 10 year old boy,I fondly recall watching this movie over and over and over again on HBO....I suppose dozens of screenings,along with a nostalgia for one's childhood memories can make even Ishtar great..Nevertheless,the final 30 minutes are quite entertaining,with a pretty good ending.The love stories can drag out in this type of movie,and do.

carnivalofsouls "Crackers" falls into that category of films that have failed quite inexplicably - helmed by a great director, starring a cast of assured veterans (Sutherland, Warden) and talented newcomers (Penn, Baranksi) and written by the screenwriter of one of the best films of the eighties ("Cutter's Way"). Then why is it that no one talks about the film anymore? Firstly, the film has been made far more successfully on two other occasions in the guise of "Big Deal on Madonna Street" and then recently "Welcome To Collinwood". Secondly, Malle must have been going through an eighties dance music phase when he made the film because it is effectively ruined by an utterly dated and abysmal soundtrack - with a proper film score it would have been a far better film. Lastly, Sutherland gives what is probably his most broad and embarrassingly unfunny performance in the lead, subsequently hindering any sympathy for his character. There are other qualms (what exactly is the purpose of Baranski's character, lets throw in a slut for some wacky comedy?) but it is nevertheless still quite watchable. Shawn, who would collaborate with Malle on the acclaimed films "My Dinner With Andre" and "Vanya on 42nd Street", is very funny as the forever-eating Turtle and Penn is amusing in a dumb hood role he would practically resume for "We're No Angels", another film with a great director, writer and cast that would be a critical and commercial failure. No film made by Malle could be truly bad, and this isn't, but it is neither as quirky or funny as it wants to be.

Charles Watson The Watergate break-in ran smoother than the operation executed in this flick. Of course, to get an inexperienced crew from all walks of street life (a family pimp, a musical hick and his vato, a hungry bum, and a chief conspirator with a fantasy-fulfilling meter maid girlfriend) to work together to get a pawn dealer's suspected lode from a locked safe and not have the police bust you is dicey if the musical hick had not built the store alarm with the skill level he had to operate nitroglycerin on a building beam as if he were lighting a Christmas tree. This is why his vato doesn't want him near his sister as well as it being his sister. It is somewhat more understandable than the family pimp falling for a maid who pursues a chance at prostitution and is dissuaded by the pimp. "Crackers" is a business sector misadventure set in a not-so-bustling city .