Among contemporary urban-scene-movies … Brian De Palma's "Hi, Mom!" stands out for its wit, its ironic good humor, its multilevel sophistications, its technical ingenuity, its nervousness, and its very special ability to bring the sensibility of the suburbs to the sins of the inner city. With no recognizable landmark further north than Cooper Square, it nevertheless feels like Bronxville or the quieter stretches of the upper East Side.

Not that it aspires to quietness or that it even for a second eschews relevancy….

"Hi, Mom!" turns approximately every other current social misery to a comedy that is sometimes quite elaborately successful and sometimes only well intentioned. As in De Palma's previous "Greetings," the humor, at its best, is understated but highly structured—so that you have to work a bit for your laughs. But "Hi, Mom!" is much sharper, crueler, funnier. Although it scatters some shots (often in a...