Director/writer Paul L. Carr’s zany screwball comedy Casual Criminals feels like a stage comedy moved to the screen. “Father” Ricky (Rick Reardon) is a con man masquerading as a priest with an outrageous fake Irish accent. His partner in crime, Veronica (Arin Mulvaney) is a next-door-neighbor type who also serves as the femme fatale. The vagrant ex-cellmate of Ricky who stalks him demanding money is played by Carr himself.
As Ricky fails to cash in on a dizzying variety of grifter schemes, he recruits Veronica to help him make one big score. Ricky and Veronica cook up a plan to defraud two older women of their inheritance, with the only roadblock being their brother, McGhee the Plumber (Brian Walsh). The situation becomes increasingly complicated and difficult to juggle as Veronica finds herself smitten with the articulate and accomplished plumber.
“…Ricky is a con man masquerading as a priest with an outrageous fake Irish accent…”
The narrative is as absurd as it sounds, but the rapid-fire dialogue keeps it lively. Casual Criminals is what one might get if one mashed up Duck Soup with Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. The action is also reminiscent of a 1992 homage to the Marx Brothers called Brain Donors with John Turturro.
The plot of Casual Criminals is thin, with the emphasis placed on slapstick action and verbal humor. The cinematography and sets are minimal, mostly looking like it was shot in private homes and cars, and there is no soundtrack to speak of. While the production quality is amateurish, largely because of the budget, the performances make the film worth the effort. Reardon and Mulvaney keep up a steady patter of banter between them that shapes and defines the film. The heavy lifting falls to Reardon, who hams his way with bombastic charm through a series of increasingly wild antics.
This is not highbrow cinema, but it is clever and diverting, primarily driven by the pleasure of the chemistry between Reardon and Mulvaney.
"…clever and diverting..."
