Suicide Kings

It's bad enough when preppie types make movies about underworld heists, but when they make movies about preppie types who pull off underworld heists, things get a little dilettantish. Paul O'Fallon of TV's thirtysomething and Party of Five wrote and directed this shaggy-dog suspense thriller that despite the requisite appearance of Christopher Walken as a mafioso achieves scarcely a moment of credibility. He's Charlie Barrett, retired New York City don and current kidnapping victim of spoiled, upper-crust buddies Avery (Henry Thomas), Brett (Jay Mohr), Max (Sean Patrick Flanery), and T.K. (Jeremy Sisto). Their half-baked plan is to use his influence to set free Avery's sister, herself kidnapped by malefactors unknown. No sooner than you can say "cat and mouse" than the wily don, taped to a chair in the parental mansion of unwitting accomplice and anal comic relief Ira (Johnny Galecki), starts to unravel the boys' spurious friendship and the film's flimsy plot. With Denis Leary as Barrett's stooge trying to squeeze Tarantino-esque humor from a pair of stingray-skin boots, Suicide Kings plays an empty hand with nothing wild. At the Showcase (Warwick only).

-- Peter Keough