The first feature of Irish-born writer and director Myles Connell, a lean, quiet, slow, down-in-the-mouth heist thriller, Plot No. 1(b), the one about the ex-con who tries to go straight but gets detoured by bad company. (We lose some respect for his savvy, or for the writer-director's, when the ex-con fails to perceive what every moviegoer will know in an instant: that the roadblock was purposely set.) The blue-collar locales in and around Queens are well chosen if not especially well used or photographed. (Atmosphere has always been harder to come by since noir went full color.) Good work in supporting parts by Cyndi Lauper, Vera Farmiga, Donal Logue, and Tom Noonan; not so much from Peter McDonald, a pair of kitted brows and little else, as a trouble-seeking visitor from Ireland. And even Christopher Walken, with a wheatfield haircut, comes across as more of a human than normal. By no means a normal human, but a human nevertheless. (2000) — Duncan Shepherd
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