Capers

Simultaneously channeling Scorsese, Jarmusch and Wayans, the first-time feature director Julian Mark Kheel films each story line of his indie comedy “The Brooklyn Heist” in a different mode. As three bumbling gangs of crooks plan to hit the same pawnshop on the same night, the old friends from the neighborhood are shot “Mean Streets” style, the buppie gangsters appear in mock rap videos and the solemn Chechnyan siblings perform in art-house black and white.
Unfortunately, the jokes are pretty much the same from story to story, and they’re only mildly funny. The best is the small visual gag that starts the movie when Danny Masterson (“That ’70s Show”), as the especially hapless Fitz, holds a stethoscope up to the digital safe he’s trying to crack. Much of the humor is generated from the diversity of Brooklyn, which the script (by Mr. Kheel and Brett Halsey) reduces to broad ethnic and racial stereotypes.
The cast includes more recognizable faces than you’d expect, including Leon, Dominique Swain and Craig (muMs) Grant (Poet in “Oz” ). Mackenzie Milone steals scenes as a young white girl first kidnapped, and then adopted, by the black gang.
“The Brooklyn Heist” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Bad words, racial slurs and lesbian F.B.I. kissing.
Da The New York Times, 27 Novembre 2009