Surprisingly Good

Rating: 7/10 (6 February 2006)

To put it simply, Match Point really surprised me. I normally am not a fan of Woody Allen's writing style (besides when he shines on dialouge, something hard not to love). I went into the theater expecting a film so annoyingly bad that I could joke about it later with friends. (I came to this conclusion after reading some summaries, tag-lines, and quotes.) Instead, I had the pleasure of seeing a movie with an array of relatable characters and situations along with a great ending.
The overall story of the film makes it a definite must-see. What really turned me on to the story was the ending. Even if the rest of the story was bad, the ending would have made up for it. Even though the acting, dialouge, and shooting style were all boring and sub-par, I still consider this a great movie because of the ending.
I admit that the acting and dialouge are bad. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers always seemed like he was about to cry regardless of the emotion of the scene. I have a bias against Scarlett Johansson (mostly because of the Island) that made it hard for her to be convincing to me. Both characters were rendered even worse by the bad dialouge which was either over-full of British colloquialisms or just hurriedly written.
The cinematography was bland. It was very static in more ways than one. It was static as in still, without many notable moving shots. In addition, it was static as in unchanging, unreflective of the feeling a shot or scene was meant to convey. One part of the cinematography that I did like was that many of the close-ups were very sharply focused which helped to keep the attention on the words (the very poorly written words) of the characters. These didn't make up for the otherwise boring shooting style.
Despite the technical and personnel flaws (I really enjoy phrasing it in this way), Match Point is still very much worth seeing because of the relatability of the story. The themes present are so universal that they overshadow the bad dialouge and acting. The movie also ends in an amazing way that has to be seen to be fully understood.
If you don't get a chance to see this in the theater, you need to rent it and watch it with some friends with good senses of humor.