The polar opposite of From Dusk Till Dawn 2 would be Safe Men, a quietly riotous little movie that was released for about 10 minutes on 20 screens last summer. Who makes these decisions? This movie is great! Written and directed by cinematic novice John Hamburg, using a mostly unheard-of cast with a few more familiar but consistently divergent types mixed in, it follows deluded lounge-singing duo Sam and Eddie (Sam Rockwell, and Steve Zahn from Out of Sight), who are convinced they could be the "Simon and Garfunkel for the Millennium" if they could just get a few breaks, and if Sam could remember the lyrics to Dire Straits' "Walk of Life." Stuck doing Polish rest homes in Providence, R.I., they get a welcome interruption from sub-par when the intern (Paul Giamatti, whose supporting parts added to The Negotiator and My Best Friend's Wedding) for Jewish gangster Big Fat Bernie Gayle (Michael Lerner, sporting even sillier hair than he had in Mod Squad) mistakes them for safecrackers. Consequently they wind up pitching in with some of the nicest criminals you could ever wish to meet; Sam falls for Hannah, the daughter of a Jewish fence (Harvey Fierstein) who runs a kind of an illegal Sam's Club (I guess that should be Samuel's Club); Eddie discovers just in time he has a knack for his estranged father's profession; and everybody goes to Little Big Fat Bernie's bar mitzvah party wearing matching sweatsuits.

A wonderfully understated film, Safe Men looks like something Jeff Sumerel might have directed, starting with proudly quirky characters and building their relationships so that the comic moments naturally bubble out. There's a gently hilarious scene in which Sam and Eddie trade insults by softly calling each other the names of "Charlie's Angels" that gave me my best laugh so far this year.

I guess you had to be there. A

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