Oh Woody you were funny and better at tragedies when you were young

Rating: 6/10 (16 February 2006)

I am an admirer of Allen's work, I simply loved PLAY IT AGAIN,SAM and LIFE AND DEATH. I had also seen some of Allen's tragedies before and I knew that he was good at them, too. So, of course, I had great expectations on this one. I was disappointed. I thought that to a certain extent and until the killing scene the film was OK, but not superb. But I wasn't at all convinced of the Rhys-Myers character and I just didn't think he would have the guts to kill the Johansson character. He just seemed too nice and certainly not diabolical enough to commit such an atrocious act. As to the whole investigation by the clumsy police cops (Sick boy from Trainspotting): Was Allen trying to be funny? If so, he didn't succeed. To me, the whole investigation was like a useless appendix to a film that should have ended a lot earlier. And when the Rhys-Myers character meets his two murder victims in the kitchen at night and defines the old lady as collateral damage I was completely put off by the way how Allen concocted a lot of his earlier film elements. Crimes and misdemeanors, an Allen film with a similar story, was much better and far more subtle. So please, Woody, for the sake of your audience, come as you were.