Scoop

This is very entertaining, an HBO movie that you watch in the middle of the day when you don't have to work. Also, I do think Hugh Jackman is absolutely sexy...wow...but I think this was a good film to help me pass the time. It is cute and comical, and I don't think it's supposed to be anything more.

I cared enough about your time to write this review to save you from this movie.

Though the title basically covers it, I did want to address how insipid this film is on every level: extraordinarily bad acting (though Hugh Jackman is passable), transparent and awkward writing, horrible dialogue and direction...anything that can be wrong, was. No, that's not entirely accurate. The production, being set in England, was at least decent to look at.

Take a hint from the cheap looking cover art (that was my first clue but I ignored it) and AVOID this film. There is absolutely ZERO tact, subtlety, and entertainment value. I don't know what movie these other people watched that gave it 3+ stars, because rating it at 1-star is being generous for me. It's nearly as bad as Rollerball (and that's saying something).

This is one of my favorite movies. Scarlett Johansson and Woody Allen are great together. Very funny. The story keeps you guessing a long time.

This is not vintage Woody Allen but pleasant enough. The young actress, Scarlett Johnasson, made it all worthwhile. The actors did their best but they had little to work with. I was disappointed in the film because I'm a fan of Woody Allen, who has made some great films in the past. I hope Allen hasn't burned out and that we can still look forward to a few more fine films from him.

Frankly, for me Woody Allen had become as pleasure long past his sell by date. However, I happened to catch this movie when flipping around and watched the rest of it and then caught the whole film at a later viewing. I liked it! No, it isn't a great film, but it is a delightful light entertainment.

Scarlett Johansson plays Sondra Pransky, a young, somewhat ditzy but earnest reporter for her college newspaper. She is in London visiting a wealth upper crust friend and staying with her family. We also learn that she has (as Woody Allen's character notes later) a problem with promiscuity. For example, when trying to get an interview with a big time movie producer who has no intention of telling her anything, all she comes away with is a hangover and an embarrassing story of being outwitted.

We also get to see a barge load of souls headed to the land of the departed engaging in the kind of idle conversation you might expect from the newly dead. A secretary tells a reporter that she knows who the Tarot Card Killer is. The reporter, Joe Strombel (Ian McShane) asks her how she would know that. She says that she noticed something about her boss's cufflinks and told someone about it over the phone, but she had hear a click on the line and suspected someone was listening. She notes that she was dead by that afternoon and suspected poison. Her boss is the millionaire son of a Lord, Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman) and Strombel is determined to not let such a story pass and slips off the barge to swim back towards the land of the living.

While attending a magic show by "The Great Splendini", Sondra gets selected to enter the "dematerializer" so she will disappear and then reappear as her molecules are agitated. While she is in the box, Strombel materializes and tells her that he knows she is a reporter and gives her the gist of the story before he is taken back. Sondra is confused, but does a web search of the key elements, goes back to tell the rightly skeptical Splendini (Woody Allen) and wants to get back in his box. Splendini lets her do it, but notes that he is really just Sid Waterman and he built the "dematerializer" and it is just plywood. Nothing happens while she is in the box, but after she steps out Strombel appears in a way that she and Sid can see and hear. Sid wants no part of it, but is drawn in. Sondra is convinced of Lyman's guilt and Sid is equally convinced of his innocence.

The rest of the story is how Sid and Sondra try to determine what is real and what is false about the story. Strombel makes a couple more short appearances to help a bit, but Sondra is also falling for the handsome and sensitive Peter Lyman and no longer believes he is the bad guy while Sid has flipped to becoming convinced of his guild.

Who is right, who is wrong, and how the story ends you should watch this charming little tale to find out. The dialogue has some with, charm, and the plot has a couple of nice twists along the way.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI