Python Hyena The Crew (2000): Dir: Michael Dinner / Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Burt Reynolds, Dan Hedaya, Seymour Cassel, Carrie-Anne Moss: Here is a comedy that features a concept that is actually funny. Title suggests small factors prevailing over bigger ones. It opens in New Jersey 1968 and chronicles four mafia guys now living in a care home. Richard Dreyfuss regrets leaving his family and wishes to locate his daughter. Burt Reynolds cannot hold a job. Dan Hedaya works at a morgue. Seymour Cassel hardly speaks accepts during sex. They are blackmailed into kidnapping but accidentally blow up the home of a drug dealer. This is perhaps the funniest and best set up comic sequence in the film, and director Michael Dinner capitalizes upon it with great payoff. Acting by the veteran cast is a great combination. Dreyfuss will discover that his daughter is indeed the police woman investigating their crimes. Reynolds cannot make a career out of the fast food industry. Hedaya makes smiles on the corpses at the morgue. And Cassel has great sex. Carrie-Anne Moss is effective as Dreyfuss's daughter who is a police officer and now dealing with who her father became. What works against it is the contrived ending that allows the criminal so-called good guys to get off the hook. It has a great theme regarding time and age and a small crew that got duped into making a terrible move. Score: 7 / 10

lastliberal Sometimes we watch movies for the strangest reasons; at least I do. I tuned into this movie about a bunch of aging mobsters for one reason - and it wasn't to see Richard Dreyfuss, Burt Reynolds, Dan Hedaya, or Seymour Cassel, who played some aging mobsters trying to stop the development of their South Beach hotel.I do have to say that the mob needs a retirement plan, as it is pitiful seeing old wise guys flipping burgers or dancing with old widows for $3.50 an hour.The mobsters came up against the Columbian mob led by Miguel Sandoval when they accidentally whacked his father. They didn't really, but that part of the humor in this film.It was nice to see Jennifer Tilly and Carrie Ann Moss, and Jeremy Piven as a sleazy mob-connected detective that was always trying to hit on Moss, but they are not the reason I tuned in either.This story has been done before in different ways with different characters. There was noting especially funny about this version or the actors involved.So, why did I watch it? I wanted to see Christa Campbell, who was on the screen for maybe five seconds. I could have waited for next month's Playboy, or October's Scars, or the release of Death by Engagement, but I just couldn't wait. It wasn't worth the five seconds.

artzau Ugh. What a disappointment. A great line-up: Dannie Hedaya, Big Burt Reynolds, Seymour Cassel, Richard Dreyfuss and even Lainie Kazan; an excellent premise for hilarity: a bunch of retired wise-guys...and no story. It just falls apart like one of those cartoon characters that's been hit in the head with a falling anvil: first, the head, then an arm, then..., well, you know. Dang! it's too stinking bad as I wanted, really wanted to see some funny business out of this array of talent-- but, even the best acting "Crew" can't pull it off with no story. The first reviewer here remarked on the retiree stereotypes and the gags wear thin, thin after the first run through. The plot (?) doesn't hold and it goes down, down. Bummer. I don't like to dis a film, especially with a "Crew" of guys that I've enjoyed in other films, but this one is a stinker and we will just have to let it go. Bummer again. I was up for some good comedy.

Bob-45 "The Crew," like one of its leads, Burt Reynolds, had great potential, but squandered it in silliness and a scattershot approach. Reynolds, along with Richard Dreyfuss, Seymour Cassal and Dan Hedaya play over-the-hill mobsters now retired in Miami Beach, trying to save their retirement hotel from the intrusion of yuppies. The scheme the use to do this is actually quite clever. However, as always, the "devil is in the details". The execution is too violent and sexually gamey for senior citizens (particularly female), too silly and juvenile for teen audiences and too predictable for the rest of us. Certainly, I cannot quibble with the casting or the performances in "The Crew". In addition to the leads, Lainie Kazan is always a welcome attraction, as is Jennifer Tilly (when one can keep his eyes off her boobs or her legs, one realizes Tilly can be a first rate actress). Carrie Anne-Moss seems a bit miscast. She's a bit to hard to engender the kind of warmth necessary in her role. But Miguel Sandoval excels in a thankless, stereotypical role as the drug lord. Although Touchstone Films premiered with a film using frontal nudity ("Splash"), the sex and violence in "The Crew" seems out of place. Let's see, we have simulated oral sex, Men's magazine level near nudity (course, no worse than you see at the beach or a public pool) and violence involving baseball bats, shotguns and near drownings. Have we really been THIS desensitized?