"Layin' Low": Danny Leiner

U.S.A.

Friday, 8:15 p.m., Saturday, 9:45 p.m.

Plodding over all too familiar territory in Brooklyn, "Layin' Low" retells the story of idling young men getting in the way of trouble and eventually getting struck down by it. As a comedy-drama this movie's streets aren't as mean as Martin Scorsese's, and the not-so-wise guys aren't as dopey as the "Bowery Boys," and since neither aspect is very sharply drawn, the movie is dulled by edgeless deja vu.

Trying to sharpen the image are Jeremy Privan as Jerry Muckler, a 33-year-old loafer (who does, however, make a mean meat loaf), and Frank John Hughes as Christy, Jerry's OTB-addicted pal (who, as tradition has it, appears to be a likely candidate for TB and other life-threatening stumbling blocks). And there is Louise Lasser as Jerry's mother and Marilyn Dobrin as his girlfriend, all performing well in this bad-news comedy, but most of the talk is too small and their work suffers.

Since Jerry Muckler maybe wants to be a writer, I assume the film is somewhat autobiographical; therefore, we get characters that were meaningful to the screenwriter-director, Danny Leiner, but to us they have the distance of "you had to be there," and others that are just too trite to intrigue. As is the progression of events: the drug deal gone wrong, the need to "lay low," and the eventual wrecking reckoning.