Like Sweet & Lowdown on release earlier this year, Small Time Crooks is a broadly comic affair reminiscent of Woody Allen's early films.

In it he plays against type as Ray Winkler, a none-too-bright thief who leads a gang of likewise underachieving lowlifes (played by Jon Lovitz, Tony Darrow and Michael Rapaport) in a daring plot to tunnel into a jewellers from a neighbouring shop.

Winkler has rented this property and disguised it as a cookie store, reluctantly run by his bolshy New Jersey wife Frenchy (played by Tracy Ullman). Needless to say the bank robbery doesn't go too well, however, the cookie store thrives bringing fame and fortune to the Winkler's.

Unfortunately, Frenchy aspires to be a culture vulture and begins to neglect her unambitious hubby in favour of art dealer David (Hugh Grant), at which point the couple's newly-acquired luxurious lifestyle takes a nose-dive.

There's lots of slapstick, cliches and gags about the Nouveau Riche, their vulgar taste in dcor and their cringe-worthy social climbing, which are very enjoyable and classically Woodyesque in the mould of Take the Money and Run, Sleeper and Love and Death.