Scoop

Scoop is the latest Woody Allen film, again filmed in London (like Match Point, his last film) and again starring Scarlett Johansson. Word is that Woody wrote the screenplay for Johansson after directing her in Match Point.

A student journalist (Johansson), visiting friends in London, gets the scoop of a lifetime about a serial killer from a most unusual source. The clues lead to a British aristocrat (Hugh Jackman), and she finds herself getting in deeper and deeper with the help of a magician (Woody Allen), and maybe even falling in love with the possible killer.

The movie starts out slowly, builds to a crawling pace in the middle, and ends rather suddenly. In other words, it's a real snore. And the end is totally unsatisfying.

I can't presume the reason such stalwart talents as Johansson and Jackman would appear in something like this. I'm guessing that the reason was because it's a Woody Allen film, and that they signed on before they read the script.

While Allen may have written it for Scarlett, he wrote 'way under her talent. Her student journalist has no complexity at all, and at times she's just the straight man for Woody Allen. Unfortunately, Woody's character isn't funny or even necessary. And the same could be said about Jackman's character: he's two-dimensional, if even that.

Unless you are a real Woody Allen fan and have to see everything he's in, or you need a good afternoon's sleep, here's a scoop for you: Don't see this film.

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