And speaking as we were yesterday about utterly preposterous works by major filmmakers involving ludicrously miscast actresses as undercover cops, let us now consider -- more in sorrow than in anger, to be sure -- the usually estimable Sidney Lumet's 1992 cops-and-Hasids thriller A Stranger Among Us. Which is, of course, essentially the circumcised version of Witness, only with unintentional laughs.

The plot:

When a diamond cutter is brutally murdered, tough-nosed and exceedingly goyische homicide cop Emily Eden (Melanie Griffith) is assigned to investigate. To do so, she goes undercover with the family of an elderly Hasidic rebbe and Holocaust survivor who is revered both for his compassion toward his fellow Jews and his uncanny ability to find home furnishings at wholesale. Griffith takes takes a liking to the rebbe's son Ariel (Eric Thal), an apprentice diamond-cutter and Yeshiva student who, harboring a secret plan to marry Madonna, is also a Kabbalah expert. Ariel rebuffs the uppity shiksa's advances, and eventually we learn that the killer is the rebbe's daughter Mara (Tracy Pollan), who thank God is actually adopted, thus sparing the family from a major shonder. There's more, including a big shootout at a real East Side synagogue, but when it's over the only thing you'll remember is that you've got gas like you wouldn't believe.

Here's the scene where Griffith's cop first encounters Ariel, just in case you think I'm making any of this up.

Needless to say none of this makes even a lick of sense, and of course Griffith passing for Jewish is about as believable as David Brooks passing for Episcopalian.

In any case, you can -- although I can't for the life of me figure out why -- order a DVD of A Stranger Among Us here.