Decent movie, lacks balance.

Rating: 6/10 (30 October 2005)

Match Point isn't a bad movie, but after watching it I didn't feel satisfied. Most of the cast provides solid acting except for Jonathan Rhys-Meyers which is rather problematic as he plays the lead role. The dialogs are good with some quite cynical humor, Allen has done a good job of adapting his writing style to the British setting of his story.
What really lets Match Point down is its structure. After thinking about the movie for quite a while it seems to me that it's built around the reference to Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment" (I.E. the murder scene). However, it's not really an adaptation as the scene doesn't serve the same purpose in the film and in the novel.
The first three quarters of the film, the romantic intrigue, go by very naturally. Chris' decision to murder Nola is very awkward and I can't help thinking that Allen wanted to make a direct reference to Dostoevsky and just couldn't figure out a way of including it in his film. Maybe an extra half hour in the middle could have helped?