Sunday, March 18, 2007

Scoop - A Movie Review


***1/2

(Woody Allen, Scarlett Johansson, Hugh Jackman)

First up, I am a Woody Allen fan, so this colour my judgement to an extent on this film. I am predisposed to like any Woody Allen film, especially the ones he also appears in.

Scoop is a lighthearted murder mystery set in London. Scarlett Johansson is Sondra Pransky, a wannabe journalist, on holiday in London. Allen is 'Splendini', an American magician performing in small halls in London. They are both visited by a recently departed famous journalist who tells them of a journalistic scoop - Lord Lyman (Hugh Jackman) is the serial killer known as the Taro Card killer. He pleads with them to follow up the story and bring Lyman to justice.

What follows is an enjoyable comic romp as the intrepid Pransky and the bumbling Splendini set about solving the mystery of who is the Taro Card killer. Is the highly respected Lord Lyman really the killer? And complications arise as Pransky and Lyman fall in love.

Woody Allen is as funny as ever with, as you'd expect some great one liners (in response to Pransky's taunt that he only ever sees the glass half empty, he replies ' no I see the glass half full, but full of poison'). Scarlett Johansson is great as the slightly nerdy Pransky, but Hugh Jackman is rather wooden ( as one reviewer put it and I agree) as Lord Lyman. Why they could not get a British actor to play the suave British aristocrat I'll never know.

All my family (two of whom are not great Allen fans) enjoyed this movie. One and a half hours of fun. Go see it!.

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