Safe Men is a movie very much of its time – released in 1998, as the pop culture-soaked crime films that consumed much of the Nineties began to wane in popularity, it's a work that's largely flown below the radar, despite its cram-packed cast of stars then on the rise (Sam Rockwell, Steve Zahn, Paul Giamatti, Mark Ruffalo and Michael Showalter, among others).

Written and directed by John Hamburg (who's since gone on to pen flicks like Meet The Parents and Zoolander), Safe Men is a simple tale of mistaken identity and unrequited love, set against the quirky backdrop of the Jewish Mafia in Providence, Rhode Island – it's a giddy, goofy lark that evaporates as soon as it's over, but you can tell throughout that Hamburg was aiming for that Big Lebowski-type audience, one that would revisit Safe Men again and again. I don't mean to sound as though the film is horrible – it's not. It's just that Safe Men, aside from a few inspired performances, doesn't really give anything you couldn't get in a half dozen other flicks from the same era.

Sam (Sam Rockwell) and Eddie (Steve Zahn) are a pair of struggling, not-terribly-good singer/songwriters who make their bones entertaining indifferent audiences of senior citizens. Frank (Mark Ruffalo) and Mitchell (Josh Pais) spend their nights cracking safes as the best pair of light-fingered thieves in Providence. One fateful night, local gangster Veal Chop (Paul Giamatti) mistakes the singers for safecrackers, enlisting them to work for the vicious thug Big Fat Bernie Gayle (Michael Lerner) – despite protestations to the contrary, Sam and Eddie find themselves pressed into service, cracking a series of safes and working their way ever deeper into the seamy underbelly of organized crime in the seemingly peaceful town of Providence.

Mistaken identities, ill-fated loves and matching tracksuits – Safe Men is riddled with idiosyncratic tics and quirks that couldn't have helped but doom the film to box office obscurity; it's certainly a movie that merits revisiting a time or two – preferably on cable or this newly released DVD – as Hamburg's skill at crafting a devastatingly hilarious throwaway line is unparalleled. Many of the seemingly "eh" lines are side-splitting upon a second or third time. So what keeps Safe Men from being a below-the-radar home run? Well, it's that sense of been there, done that which is difficult to shake; watch it for the trio of hilarious performances from Rockwell, Zahn and Giamatti, but don't expect that you'll reach for it very often.

The Video:

Safe Men is presented with a surprisingly clean 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that looks sharp – free from grain, dirt and other visual defects, this relatively young film retains its heavily lit, shadow-saturated pop.

Outfitted with a fairly mild-mannered Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, the dialogue and score are replicated with no drop-out or distortion, but often sound a little thin – I had to crank the volume in a few dialogue sequences. Also included is a Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 track, a French Dolby 2.0 stereo track and optional English, Spanish and French subtitles.

A jovial, detail-oriented commentary with Hamburg, Rockwell and Zahn is the main attraction; it's a listen that may actually sway your opinion if you're on the fence – both Rockwell and Zahn are unabashed in their praise for Hamburg's screenplay and directorial hand, with all three men sharing an easy camaraderie. A trio of deleted scenes, presented in non-anamorphic widescreen and with one scene featuring optional Hamburg/Rockwell/Zahn commentary, are available separately or all together for an aggregate of four minutes. Lastly, Hamburg's student film, "Tick," is presented in 1.33:1 fullscreen, runs for eight minutes, 58 seconds, boasting plenty of print damage but still relating the humorous tale of freelance bomb defusers Clifford and Rich.

Mistaken identities, ill-fated loves and matching tracksuits – Safe Men is riddled with idiosyncratic tics and quirks that couldn't have helped but doom the film to box office obscurity; it's certainly a movie that merits revisiting a time or two – preferably on cable or this newly released DVD. Recommended.