Sidewalks of New York 2001

views updated

Sidewalks of New York ★★ 2001 (R)

Burns's lightweight comedy about various New Yorkers looking for sex and/ or romance suffered from post-Sept. 11 disdain for anything frivoluos. But it also suffers from weak writing, obvious “borrowing” from Woody Allen when he was still funny, and too few characters the audience can connect with. Burns is recently dumped TV producer Tommy, who hooks up with recently divorced teacher Maria (Rosario), whose ex, Ben (Crumholtz), thinks they can reunite, before he meets young waitress Ashley (Murphy), who's having an affair with a dentist (Tucci), who's married to Tommy's realestate agent (Graham), in whom he naturally becomes interested. Oh, and they're all being interviewed for a documentary on love and sex in NYC. Even if it doesn't work on many levels, the performances are generally fine, with Tucci standing out in the meatiest role. 107m/C VHS, DVD . US Edward Burns, Heather Graham, Rosario Dawson, Dennis Farina, David Krumholtz, Brittany Murphy, Stanley Tucci, Callie (Calliope) Thorne, Aida Turturro, Nadia Dajani, Michael Leydon Campbell; D: Edward Burns; W: Edward Burns; C: Frank Prinzi.