by MARK SLUTSKY

Like the last gasp of that wave of cheap-o Reservoir Dogs knock-offs from the mid-'90s, Crime Spree adds a French twist to the genre, while copping some post-Sopranos clichés as well. Aside from being a pastiche, it's also a mess.

Writer/director Brad Mirman, responsible for penning such turkeys as Truth or Consequences, N.M. and the Madonna fiasco Body of Evidence, has assembled a weirdly venerable cast here, with Gérard Depardieu, Harvey Keitel, Abe Vigoda, and French singers Johnny Hallyday and Renaud all trying to keep straight faces.

Crime Spree opens in Paris, where Depardieu and two of his bumbling buddies fumble the heist of a presumably valuable painting. To atone, they're sent off to Chicago, where they're to break into some rich person's house and steal a cache of jewels. Joining them is Hallyday, who plays a higher-ranking mobster and their minder, and Renaud, a scruffy, dangerous criminal known only as "Zero."

Arriving in Chicago (played by a thinly disguised Toronto, though there's some nice second-unit footage of the Windy City itself), the team finds themselves breaking into the home of Keitel, playing Zammetti, a spaghetti-eating, pinstripe-wearing mob boss. And here the story starts to go a little crazy, with multiple teams of mobsters and important cassette tapes and valuable baseballs and crooked FBI agents all in the mix (it's not worth explaining much beyond that).

Simply put, sitting through Crime Spree is a chore. I guess it's funny to see these French performers running around with guns and yelling at each other in English, but it's also kind of depressing to see Keitel playing such a by-the-numbers caricature. The movie's intended as a comedy, and it never lets you forget it, though the jokes are pretty lame, and played with a heavy hand (especially Vigoda's affection for a Judge Judy-style TV show, which isn't funny the first - let alone third - time it's brought up). Even worse is when the movie tries to go all stylish with split screens and the like, which just comes off as faintly embarrassing. If you're looking for this kind of thing, just rent Reservoir Dogs again. Then maybe put on a Johnny Hallyday record.

Crime Spree opens Friday, Nov. 28

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