''Safe Men'' is a 1998 American

criminal In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...

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 o ...

written and directed by John Hamburg (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 ...

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 Michael or Mike Lerner may refer to: * Michael Lerner (actor) (1941–2023), American actor *Michael Lerner (angler) (1890–1978), American angler and businessman * Michael Lerner (rabbi) (born 1943), social activist *Michael Benjamin Lerner (born ...

) 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 ...

'' 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 Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

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 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 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 ''Bottle Rocket'' is a 1996 American crime comedy film directed by Wes Anderson in his feature film directorial debut. The film is written by Anderson and Owen Wilson and is based on Anderson's 1994 short film of the same name. ''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 kin ...

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 Americ ...

under the

Focus Features Focus Features LLC is an American film production and distribution company, owned by Comcast as part of Universal Pictures, a division of its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal. Focus Features distributes independent and foreign films in t ...

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