I Know the Score of That Game----40 Love.

Rating: Null/10 (18 March 2006)

Woody Allen goes totally out of character with this provocative and nearly outstanding dilemma of a movie. Former tennis pro Jonathan Rhys Meyers immediately falls for the sister (Emily Mortimer) of one of his ridiculously wealthy clients (Matthew Goode). All seems well in jolly old London until Rhys Meyers meets Goode's seductive American fiancée (another stunning turn from Scarlett Johansson). Interest turns to intrigue and then to lust and then perhaps to love or maybe a little obsession. Rhys Meyers begins to forget about Mortimer and fall into a twisted web with Johansson, but what happens when the plot does not go as planned and relationships become blurred? Allen's Londoners are just as fascinating and messed up as his New Yorkers. The change of venue is a refreshing alteration of pace for the famed film-maker and he nearly makes the whole project work with crazed symbolism and a reincarnation of that new-age style that dominated the European cinema of the 1960s and 1970s. The pacing is a bit off as the picture runs too long and Brian Cox (as Mortimer and Goode's father) is not around near as much as he should have been. Still "Match Point" finds enough momentum to climb over that pesky net. 4 stars out of 5.