Director Larry Clark's first film, the 1995 cult favorite Kids, boasts remarkable hand-held photography, an authentic feel for the rhythms of adolescent life, and a hip misanthropy that's as laughably phony as it is loathsome. As it turns out, much of the blame for the latter quality can be placed squarely on screenwriter Harmony Korine, who went on to direct the even more grotesque Gummo. Clark's follow-up, Another Day In Paradise, still gets too much mileage out of glamorizing lowlife imps, but his nuanced take on petty crime and the presence of complex, redeemable characters make it a step up from his debut. Based on a previously unpublished prison manuscript by ex-con Eddie Little, this sturdy, by-the-numbers genre picture owes a lot to Guncrazy and Bonnie And Clyde, but it has its own distinctions. Foremost among them is the unnerving, off-hand wit James Woods brings to his lively performance as a veteran small-time drug dealer and thief who models himself, without irony, after James Caan in The Godfather. Woods and his heroin-addicted wife, played by an uncharacteristically credible Melanie Griffith, take a pair of runaway teenage lovers (Vincent Kartheiser and Natasha Gregson Wagner) on a cross-country crime spree. Another Day In Paradise doesn't deviate much from its well-worn path, but it benefits greatly from Clark's unfailing eye for tragic youth—first documented in his famous photo essay, Tulsa—and the compelling surrogate-family dynamic created by the two couples. But most importantly, the film marks Woods' momentary return as a relevant actor, pushing himself right to the verge of self-parody but never quite going all the way.