This is worth taking a look at. Walken does a commendable job as the small-time crook, now out and self-employed, trying to stay honest fixing cars in a garage. Cindi Lauper is good, piling on a thick NYC accent, first time I've seen her in a movie. She's likeable, very grounded in the movie. The supporting cast is very real. The result is, you don't like many of them a lot. They're average people, and we see them in less than flattering scenes. To that extent, you do like them because they're dealing the best way they know with events.
The movie works, in part because of what it doesn't do. It doesn't make us endure one of those speeches the wife or girlfriend or best pal gives the ex-con, just before he's about to commit to one more heist. Here, Lauper just tells Walken to hit the road, she knows somethings up, and it's gonna spoil the plans they made. Very low-key. No need to get into melodrama, everybody knows the Walken character, they're not going to change his mind with wailing.
I wouldn't drive across town to see the film, but if it's convenient, this is a good character study. It has some humor, too, but only as a byproduct of things going on, not a goal. The tone of it reminded me of the movie, Thief, but only in the sense that we're watching people who live in a realm most of us never go. I'd rather see this kind of movie than another one of those idiotic gross-out comedies.
