Rent Crimes & Misdemeanors Instead

Rating: 2/10 (19 January 2006)

There have been few moments in my life where I've felt ripped off after seeing a movie, but this was one of them. I went into this flick hoping to see a good Woody Allen Movie, and all I got was an updated version of "Crimes & Misdemeanors" featuring steamy, forbidden sex between two beautiful people instead of two older people. Woody already did this before, and he's done it better.
Sure, the movie builds interesting characters in the beginning and sets them in an interesting place. But very early on the plot loses its way and descends into cliché. The characters show behavior that you can read about in the tabloids in line at the supermarket. Big deal. The whole theme of luck loses its punch due to some glaring, huge holes in the story that anyone with rudimentary common sense could figure out. There's just too much wrong with this film to forgive it on the basis of Woody's reputation.
The real tragedy of this film is that it had all the necessary components to say something worth saying rather than something already stated elsewhere. If it's supposed to be art, it's Xeroxed art. If it's supposed to simply tell a story, it's a story we've seen a million times.