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Scoop |
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 Release Date: 07/28/06 (Future Release)
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Ian McShane, Hugh Jackman, Woody Allen, Jim Dunk
Director: Woody Allen
Rating: (PG-13) |
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Genre |
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Comedy, Romance |
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Running Time |
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96 min |
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Distributor |
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Focus Features |
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 Official Website |
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NEW YORK REVIEW
We’re on familiar ground with Woody Allen’s Scoop—although shooting in London has given the prolific (too prolific?) writer-director some fresh locations and accents. Last winter’s overpraised Match Point was a British translation of Crimes and Misdemeanors and bore the dubious message that if you get away with murder, God doesn’t exist. Scoop is a British translation of Manhattan Murder Mystery and bears no message whatsoever. Much the better! The movie is hit-and-miss, but its peppy spirit boosts it over the net.
It begins with a peppy spirit—the ghost (Ian McShane) of a newly deceased Fleet Street legend who appears to a young American journalism major (Scarlett Johansson) while she’s taking part in a vanishing act by a third-rate magician (Woody Allen). The ghost has learned that the wealthy son (Hugh Jackman) of a lord is a notorious serial killer, and since he can’t publish the story himself, he wants the girl to nail it down. Come to think of it, why can't he publish it himself? Why not materialize in front of his editor? Oh, right: That would kill the premise, in which the girl and the kvetching magician are bumbling sleuths, the girl falls for the handsome aristocrat, and farcical mayhem ensues.
As an actor, Allen is both welcome and borderline insufferable, like a favorite uncle with uncontrolled flatulence. He can’t modulate the fluttering hands and spasmodic stops and starts; he’s like a Woody Allen impersonator. Actually, he is a Woody Allen impersonator—the persona having long since lost its connection to the man. That said, the performance is almost a triumph. He’s wonderful when he jabbers nonsensically at a succession of puzzled English nobles—he has a touch of Groucho. If he hadn’t conceived of the man as a Broadway Danny Rose–ish loser, both he and Scoop might have soared.
Johansson doesn’t have the natural buoyancy to play a screwball Nancy Drew; her normal delivery (which many find alluring) suggests lazy self-entitlement. But she’s smart enough to know what’s needed (a young Diane Keaton), and manages to rouse herself. Jackman gives the wittiest performance as the movie's breezy straight man. Although McShane deserved a better exit and the windup makes no sense, this is the first Allen picture since Sweet and Lowdown that doesn’t leave a bad odor in its wake.— Reviewed by David Edelstein, New York Magazine
FEATURE
And God Created Scarlett (July 10, 2006 issue of New York Magazine)
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