''Safe Men'' is a 1998 American criminal

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...

written and directed by

John Hamburg John Liman Hamburg (born May 26, 1970) is an American screenwriter, film director and producer. Personal life Hamburg was born to a Jewish family in Manhattan, the son of New York City radio personality Joan Hamburg and Morton I. Hamburg. He g ...

(in his

directorial debut This is a list of film directorial debuts in chronological order. The films and dates referred to are a director's first commercial cinematic release. Many film makers have directed works which were not commercially released, for example early work ...

), and stars

Sam Rockwell Sam Rockwell (born November 5, 1968) is an American actor. He is known for appearing in independent films and also as a character actor portraying a wide variety of roles both comedic and dramatic in films such as '' Lawn Dogs'' (19 ...

and

Steve Zahn Steven James Zahn (; born November 13, 1967) is an American actor and comedian. His film roles include ''Reality Bites'' (1994), ''That Thing You Do!'' (1996), ''Stuart Little'' (1999), '' Shattered Glass'' (2003), ''Sahara'' (2005), '' Chicken Li ...

as a pair of aspiring lounge singers who are mistaken for ace safe crackers, and get mixed up with a

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

ish mobster, Big Fat Bernie Gayle ( Michael Lerner) and Big Fat's intern, Veal Chop (

Paul Giamatti Paul Edward Valentine Giamatti (; born June 6, 1967) is an American actor and film producer. He first garnered attention for his breakout role in '' Private Parts'' as Kenny "Pig Vomit" Rushton, leading to supporting roles in ''Saving Private R ...

Reception

In August 1998, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' called it a "low-energy comedy with sufficient signs of willingness to stray off the beaten track to indicate that somewhere down the line its writer and director, John Hamburg, will create something far better." Roger Ebert gave the film one star out of four, saying it "whirls wildly from one bright idea to the next, trying to find a combo that will hold the movie together. No luck."

Mick LaSalle Mick is a masculine given name, usually a short form ( hypocorism) of Michael. Because of its popularity in Ireland, it is often used in England as a derogatory term for an Irish person or a person of Irish descent. In Australia the meaning broad ...

gave it "There's no dramatic urgency, no distinct point of view, no question of plot to keep an audience interested. All ''Safe Men'' has is the charm of the actors and the occasional friskiness of the writing. That's almost enough to keep the picture alive, minute by minute. Alive is not the same as thriving, but it's better than dead. In March 2002,

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

began its review with:

The vast majority of direct-to-video films are not very good, lacking not only star power and budget, but ideas and imagination. Every once in a while, though, a movie is denied a proper theatrical release not because it's bad, but because it just isn't the sort of film for which a studio is willing to risk a multimillion-dollar advertising budget. Safe Men is one of these movies, a modest but engaging crime comedy.

A.V. Club also called the film a "sort of '' Bottle Rocket'' Lite, sharing a deadpan, consistently sustained comic tone, as well as a palpable affection for its characters. Almost everyone in ''Safe Men'' is pathetic on some level, but first-time writer-director John Hamburg grants even his least significant characters a humanity that gives the film a sort of warm, fuzzy glow.

Songs from the film

DVD release

The movie was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...

under the Focus Features label on August 15, 2006 with new commentary features and ''Tick'', a short film by John Hamburg about independently contracted bomb defusers starring Michael Showalter. Mill Creek Entertainment will release the Blu-ray version on July 12, 2022.

References

External links

* * * {{John Hamburg Films directed by John Hamburg American buddy comedy films 1990s English-language films American crime comedy films 1990s crime comedy films 1998 films Films set in Rhode Island Films with screenplays by John Hamburg Films scored by Theodore Shapiro 1998 directorial debut films 1998 comedy films 1990s buddy comedy films 1990s American films