? The second of Woody Allen’s trilogy of London set films is a lighter, more comic affair than the previous Match Point. Just as that film harkened back to the themes of Crimes and Misdemeanors, Scoop has an element of Manhattan Murder Mystery, specifically a snooping amateur sleuth (Scarlett Johannsen) plowing over circumstantial evidence with a reluctant male accomplice. In this case, she’s an aspiring reporter who, tipped off by a dead guy, teams up with a middling magician (Allen) to investigate whether a handsome aristocrat (Hugh Jackman) might actually be a notorious serial killer.
+ Johanssen’s girlish
character, in contrast to her femme fatale in Match Point, has a
nice chemistry with Allen, in a father-daughter kind of way. I quite
enjoyed the way she’s torn between a desire to solve the mystery and plain
desire. The resolution of the mystery, while not as clever as in Match Point,
is satisfying. All the while, Allen’s magician babbles comically (to me)
throughout. For example, he nonsensically calls everyone he meets, “a credit to
your race.” That would appear to be, in every case, the Caucasian race.
- Allen’s concept of
the afterlife, a boat carrying away the recently departed with a hooded Grim
Reaper as the silent skipper, is amusing, but having a dead reporter (Ian
McShane) inexplicably feeding the heroine information is a mildly lame deus
ex machina. Other plot points, like the way the snooping reporter
coincidentally spots someone who’s supposed to be out of town, seem
overfamiliar. Allen’s magician babbles (tiresomely, I’m sure, to some)
throughout.
= ***1/2 If Match
Point was the Woody Allen movie for people who didn’t like Woody Allen
movies, Scoop is one for the fans. Allen’s magician provides a stream of
nervous schtick, and the whimsical tone is not unlike his 1990s films
such as Curse of the Jade Scorpion. Even the female lead has some
typical Allen mannerisms/dialogue. When he says that they need to put their
heads together, she replies that “you’ll hear a hollow noise.” Funny stuff.
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