Scoop Reviews

Is this the sight of Woody Allen trying to make one of Alfred Hitchcock’s chic European comedic thrillers? If so, then Allen should promptly return to witty, urbane jokes, or his novelistic comedic-dramas, because trying to make something that combines murder-mystery with romance and ethnic supporting players like The Thin Man isn’t his strongest showing. It isn’t that Scoop is truly terrible, it’s far more mildly amusing and a pleasing time waster between his better works, it’s just that it feels discordant and repetitious.

 

And it’s never the fault of the game cast, chief among them Scarlett Johansson going all-in on the neurosis and tics and Hugh Jackman using his charm as subterfuge, who delivers their laughs with conviction. It’s just that the material is merely serviceable in spots, confounding in others, and just plain lazy in too many spots. There’s a sweet spot of about 45 minutes in the middle where everything is working well enough to make Scoop mute its loud problems. This is has got to be somewhere towards the bottom of the barrel for Allen.

"Scoop" was a fun movie, although Scarlet Johansson's performance as Sondra Pranske/Jade Spence at times felt stagy. Woody Allen's character, Sidney Waterman, felt a little unnecessary to the plot, although Hugh Jackman gave a convincing performance as the suspect and love interest. Altogether it was an enjoyable film.

Both laughs and thrills are on the masthead in this comedy drama about a would-be reporter written and directed by Woody Allen. Sondra Pransky (Scarlett Johansson) is an American journalism student who travels to England to visit friends. While in London, she attends a magic show where magician Sid "Splendini" Waterman (Woody Allen) brings her on-stage as part of a trick in which he makes her disappear. However, while waiting to be "de-materialized," she's visited by the ghost of a murdered reporter (Ian McShane), who passes along the scoop of the decade. The spirit claims that Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman), the wealthy and handsome son of a well-known aristocrat, is leading a double life as "the Tarot Card Killer," a serial murderer who has been terrifying the nation and eluding police. With the magician's help, Jane begins investigating the story and is able to piece together some incriminating evidence against Lyman. However, the more she learns, the more dangerous her investigation becomes -- especially when she falls into a romance with the suspected killer. Scoop was Woody Allen's second consecutive film with leading lady Scarlett Johansson, after the critically acclaimed Match Point; it was also Allen's second feature to be shot in Great Britain.

Since I only heard bad things about this flick, I really had some rather low expectations but since I have been faithfully following Woody Allen for almost 20 years, I still wanted to check it out. Eventually, I thought it was not that bad after at all. Indeed, it was the 2nd time Scarlett Johansson was working with Woody Allen, I particularly enjoyed her performance and I would even go as far as saying that she gave here one of her best performances. Together with Woody Allen, they really made a rather unexpected but hilarious duo. Unfortunately, even though I enjoyed the first hour, in the last half 30 minutes, the movie started to focus on some really underwhelming detective story. It was pretty obvious that Allen didn't care much about this aspect of the story as it was rather weak and nothing mind-blowing. At the end of the day, it is a perfect example about how Woody Allen‘s work ethic is rather counter-productive. Indeed, every single year, he comes up with a new movie and it is not surprising to see a movie like this one with a strong 1st half and a really weak 2nd half. If he would have spend 3 or 4 years on this production, it could have been much better. Still, an average Allen flick is always better than most of the movies I see and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Allen's work.

About as satisfying as a stick of chewing gum, saccharine sweet.