Frogs for Snakes

Writer-director Amos Poe (who penned the character-rich Rocket Gibraltar) uses a 1957 Sonny Boy Williamson song as the starting point for this strange, comic slice of neo-noir. Poe gives a wicked twist to the recent Hollywood trend of A-list actors scrambling for Tarantinoesque roles. He creates a seedy and wacky Manhattan universe in which criminal elements vie for parts in a theater group run by a loan shark and spout their favorite monologues between bouts of sex, maiming and murder. The game cast includes Barbara Hershey as a collector who wants to go legit, Robbie Coltrane, Lisa Marie, Harry Hamlin, Ron Perlman and “Mod Squad” alumnus Clarence Williams III.