THE OPPORTUNISTS

Well-acted little seriocomedy about a desperate ex-con (Christopher Walken) who’s coaxed into cracking one last safe.Running time: 89 minutes. Rated R. At the Angelika, Houston and Mercer streets.

IT isn’t often you see a movie these days where (a) Christopher Walken plays a normal human being; (b) the main character is a master safecracker and (c) where a Queens resident is played by a real-life Queens native.

But writer-director Myles Connell’s debut film has more going for it than novelty value.

Walken gives a beautifully understated performance as a financially hard-pressed ex-con who is coaxed back into the criminal life by a shady young Irish immigrant (Peter McDonald) who claims to be his cousin.

The movie’s high point is their heist – cracking the safe at a security company where they know the owner is skimming the take from his customers.

But “The Opportunists” is no hair-trigger thriller like “Rififi” or “The Asphalt Jungle,” though Connell pays homage particularly to the latter movie.

It’s a more layered seriocomic character study of quiet desperation – colorfully depicted in the Irish enclave of Sunnyside, Queens.

Cyndi Lauper, a bona-fide Queens native like Walken, gives her best screen performance to date as his no-nonsense girlfriend, from whom he refuses to accept a loan -with dire consequences.

The fine ensemble also includes Vera Farmiga and Anne Pitoniak as Walken’s concerned daughter and elderly aunt, respectively. Tom Noonan has a showy cameo as his criminal mentor, who can see disaster looming.

The only discordant note is struck by a pre-“Tao of Steve” Donal Logue, whose accent as a crooked security guard is a few hundred miles off.