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Even Woody Allen has a misfire once in awhile and he had a major misstep with 2006's Scoop, an interesting concept for a movie that gets lost amidst an overly padded screenplay and the director's thinking from below the waist that I'm pretty sure precipitated the casting of the leading female character.
Set in contemporary London, this is the story of a deceased British journalist (Ian McShane) who appears to a journalism student vacationing in London named Sondra (Scarlett Johansson) and strongly suggests that a wealthy English playboy named Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman) is the Tarot Card Killer because he met Peter's secretary upon arrival in Purgatory who suspects her boss murdered her. This tip motivates Sondra and a second rate American magician (Woody Allen) to investigate Lyman so that Sondra can get the scoop of the century, but as expected, Sondra begins to fall in love with Lyman, despite evidence piling up toward his guilt.
The basic idea of this movie is pretty good, but there are a lot of problems here and the primary one is the casting of Scarlett Johansson as Sondra. The Woodmeister clearly has a thing for the actress, having used her to excellent advantage the year before in Match Pont, but that was a drama. Johansson can be a strong actress in the right dramatic role but the woman is not funny and her performance here doesn't work at all and it's not entirely her fault. Woody's screenplay is confusing as to exactly who Sondra is and her degree of intelligence seems to change from one scene to the next. The film is pretty much centered around the character of Sondra, but Johansson just seems out of place here. Woody has even chosen to de-glam the actress for this role...minimal hair and makeup and glasses that do nothing to help her appeal. I guess this was supposed to show us that Johansson doesn't need to reply on her looks, but for this performance it might have helped.
I was also troubled by Woody Allen's performance. I haven't said this in awhile regarding Woody's work onscreen, but I have never found him as tedious and annoying as I did here...his constant stuttering over his lines like he didn't quite have them memorized was maddening. How can the writer not know his own lines? If the truth be known, I think this whole story could have worked without Woody's character at all...it would have been a lot more fun watching Sondra working with a ghost than with this guy, who for most of the running time, really wasn't a lot of help.
Woody gets an "A" for effort here, but he really needs to put a little more thought into his casting process than how it might get him laid. This was so unlike Woody, who normally serves his story first, but he was definitely trying to get something else serviced here.
Even Woody Allen has a misfire once in awhile and he had a major misstep with 2006's Scoop, an interesting concept for a movie that gets lost amidst an overly padded screenplay and the director's thinking from below the waist that I'm pretty sure precipitated the casting of the leading female character.
Set in contemporary London, this is the story of a deceased British journalist (Ian McShane) who appears to a journalism student vacationing in London named Sondra (Scarlett Johansson) and strongly suggests that a wealthy English playboy named Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman) is the Tarot Card Killer because he met Peter's secretary upon arrival in Purgatory who suspects her boss murdered her. This tip motivates Sondra and a second rate American magician (Woody Allen) to investigate Lyman so that Sondra can get the scoop of the century, but as expected, Sondra begins to fall in love with Lyman, despite evidence piling up toward his guilt.
The basic idea of this movie is pretty good, but there are a lot of problems here and the primary one is the casting of Scarlett Johansson as Sondra. The Woodmeister clearly has a thing for the actress, having used her to excellent advantage the year before in Match Pont, but that was a drama. Johansson can be a strong actress in the right dramatic role but the woman is not funny and her performance here doesn't work at all and it's not entirely her fault. Woody's screenplay is confusing as to exactly who Sondra is and her degree of intelligence seems to change from one scene to the next. The film is pretty much centered around the character of Sondra, but Johansson just seems out of place here. Woody has even chosen to de-glam the actress for this role...minimal hair and makeup and glasses that do nothing to help her appeal. I guess this was supposed to show us that Johansson doesn't need to reply on her looks, but for this performance it might have helped.
I was also troubled by Woody Allen's performance. I haven't said this in awhile regarding Woody's work onscreen, but I have never found him as tedious and annoying as I did here...his constant stuttering over his lines like he didn't quite have them memorized was maddening. How can the writer not know his own lines? If the truth be known, I think this whole story could have worked without Woody's character at all...it would have been a lot more fun watching Sondra working with a ghost than with this guy, who for most of the running time, really wasn't a lot of help.
Woody gets an "A" for effort here, but he really needs to put a little more thought into his casting process than how it might get him laid. This was so unlike Woody, who normally serves his story first, but he was definitely trying to get something else serviced here.