Sidewalks of New York (2001)

Edward Burns has long been a devotee -- some would say shameless imitator -- of the films of Woody Allen, and Sidewalks of New York may be his most fervid homage to Allen yet, as well as his most unabashed valentine to New York City. But where he crucially misinterprets Allen is in the tone, which is far nastier than the writer-producer-director-star probably means it to be. The result is a film that can be downright unpleasant to watch, laced with aggressive f-words and angry characters. Of course Burns' dialogue is not at Allen's level, but where it's most noticeable is the humor, which goes for the mean-spirited embarrassments rather than the harmlessly neurotic ones that populate Allen's films. That the central six characters would treat each other with such casual disdain may be keeping with reality. But Burns is a romantic and an optimist at heart, so it's inconsistent with his outlook -- not to mention cruel on his romantic comedy target audience -- to provide only dubious outcomes and lesser evils for viewers to cheer. Burns insists on casting himself as the default good guy, because he imagines that his unpretentious regular Joe from Queens (with GQ good looks) is the ideal condition of the modern twentysomething. But Burns plays -- or rather, reads the lines of -- this character in each of his films, and it's just another deceptively insidious type. Of the hip cast, Brittany Murphy comes off best as a goofy waitress waffling between a philandering dentist (Stanley Tucci) and a fawning doorman (David Krumholtz, doing his best Woody impersonation). That any self-respecting documentary crew would focus a project on these vapid lives might be Burns' greatest self-deception. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide