Match Point a Dud

Rating: 1/10 (13 January 2006)

Too bad for Woody Allen, his earlier films set such a high bar for himself that one can't go into one of his films without expectations. I won't be the last to point out that he has delivered a few recent flops: "Hollywood Ending" and "Anything Else" to name but two. Nevertheless, hope springs eternal within Woody fans such as myself, and when I heard that his latest movie "Match Point" was garnering some critical acclaim that spurred me to get out to my local theater to see for myself if the buzz was apropos.
The story, an oft told Guy meets someone else's Girl and eventually gets Girl pregnant while Guy is married to another girl tale, is set in present-time London.
The Guy is Chris Wilton (played by Jonathon Rhys-Meyers), a failed tennis pro who enters the mix upon being hired at a tennis club catering to a filthy rich clientèle. Mr. Rhys-Meyers seems as likely a tennis ace as Danny Devito is a body builder. Bony as an English rock guitarist and sporting the tennis stroke of a grandmother, Rhys-Meyers fails on all levels to convince me that Chris Wilton used to give tennis all-stars like Andre Agassi a good game.
As for the Girl, she's a failing American actress named Nola Rice. Scarlett Johansson whose star is falling faster than a rejected American Idol plays her. While hoping to look hip or appealing Ms. Johansson comes off looking like a flailing porn star, what with her collagen-enhanced lips pumped up to 45 pounds per square inch. From what she tells Chris she appealed to her ex-fiancé, Tom Hewett (played by Matthew Goode), only because of his insolent need to play against his mother's desire for him to marry a girl suitable to the family's upper class standing.
That Nola immediately appeals to Chris is not surprising, as they are both underdogs cast into a society that only appreciates show dogs. What is surprising is that they hit it off so deeply upon their initial meeting at the Hewett manse.
In the scene Chris is led through the house into a game room within which Nola is playing Ping-Pong. Upon entering an old uncle is seen exiting with his tail between his legs, a victim of Nola's vicious game. After the uncle vacates the room Chris and Nola exchange one volley. That's all--one volley. As in, ping and pong. Subsequently, as Chris' Pong was a put-away shot of a poor, high-bouncing serve, Nola concedes to his superior skills.
The ensuing scene will cause you to squirm in your seat.
Its plotting is totally unbelievable while the dialog is sophomoric, loaded with bland tennis metaphors ill-conceived by Allen. Both characters speak of "serves" and "taking chances" and "following through," getting closer and closer and closer while dispensing double entendre's culled from decrepit vaudeville routines. Mind you, they JUST MET within the prior SIXTY SECONDS and Nola's fiancé, Tom, is in the next room! Prior to this scene one has been given no reason to believe that Chris is such a skirt-chasing sleaze-ball.
The scene is neither racy nor intriguing, instead it is forced and distracting.
I could give you ten other examples of such ridiculous exchanges.
Throughout this film Allen's dialog, spoken by the tight-lipped, London-based upper crustaceans populating this film, is as palatable as freezer-burned ice cream. He might have been better served choosing London's lower gentry as players too. I say that because his actors play their parts to English stereotypes grafted from films featuring stodgy, fox-hunting English types. Thus, whatever laughs or innuendos might have been wrought from the dreadfully predictable screenplay were given short shrift by the tight-lipped Brits populating the cast. They speak the King's English as if competing in the finals of a speech contest.
Allen's choice of music has hit rock bottom in terms of his usage of soundtrack to cue our emotions. Throughout the film we are led from scene to scene via songs from the operas "La Traviata" and "Rigoletto." Having put forth such preposterous scenes as described above Allen's employment of dramatic overtures is, in fact, torturous, if not out-right, insulting. Had he written a screenplay capable of agitating our emotions he would not have had to resort to the trite usage of dramatic music to point us in the direction he sought.
With all that going against it, there is little wonder that "Match Point" has little entertainment value. The simpleton plot is stretched out tediously. Seasons pass while the obvious tension between Chris and Nola, and Chris and his impregnable wife, Chloe, remain static, unmoving. Never given the chance to evolve their disagreements or disputes, and often portrayed as either buffoons (Chloe, who never thoroughly investigates any suspicion she has of her husband) or ignoramuses (Mr. Hewett, the family patriarch who knows...nothing), there isn't one character that you evinces any emotional attachment.
Truly, by movie's end you want them all just to go away.