Game, set and match

Rating: 9/10 (17 June 2006)

This is a dazzling film - the only thing similar to other Woody Allen movies were in the musical choices and credits portrayal. This is a gem of a film, with top-notch performances from all the actors, good scripting and fine directing by Woody Allen.
Maybe paranoia overtakes neuroses, and Jonathan Rhys Myers replaces the older, nebbische Woody Allen, and all that's good. It was so refreshing to have a darker film, and less indulgence than in some of Allen's previous movies.
SPOILERS BELOW In what is clearly an interesting move, in this movie, crime does pay. The ball which bounces off the net can cause a match to be won or lost, as says the narrator at the beginning of the film. There was a barely concealed gasp when the ring did not go into the Thames, and most of us assumed that that would lead to Chris Wilton's arrest. It doesn't. The ring, being picked up by a tramp, and found by the police "proves" Chris's innocence.
The moral ambivalence is what makes the film; it had me thinking and talking for long after. Intensely satisfying.
Game, Set and Match!