ChanFamous
I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.
Mabel Munoz
Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?
Neive Bellamy
Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
Allison Davies
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
merelyaninnuendo
Match PointThe first half is spent on setting the obvious plot, twisted characters and dark tone of the feature and takes its time to kick in but when it does its enthralling, electrifying and brutal in its last hour. Woddy Allen's smart and finely detailed script is the real game changer in here along with his brilliant execution that makes you think twice. On performance level, the objective seems unsatisfied as the lead characters i.e. Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Meyers and Emily Mortimer aren't as convincing as they should have been. Match Point seems like a normal rom-com with a predictable twist until its last act hits on screen that may shake the audience dreadfully
for despite of its genre it goes into places where Woody Allen has never been.
apollomoonprint
Woody Allen, among the Elite of Film Director's in Film Industry, & 4 time Academy Award winner, has created a luster which continues to shine since before his Masterpiece, Mahattan, who else can speak (Woody is so leveled headed, "bragging" is never synonymous with this genius,) So many others can learn from his Sanity,.
Oddly enough Johansen, who is a rare miscast, nearly ruins the film, but Woody's genius saves the day. Filmed in London, a refreshing departure from Woody's New York domain, where filmmaking representation has never been equaled on Mr. Allen's respected level.
luhgnut
Saw this as a press reveal session. Four reviewers from different Radio/TV etc were sitting in front of me and my wife. We got invited free. - The movie starts and nothing happens, half way through, still nothing happens, and then the end. Where nothing happens.It's basically the story of Rich Kids hanging out with the "help". The tennis instructor and other people that are attracted to young adults with money. That's it.One scene, and I kid you not, goes on for 15 minutes of the rich kids deciding where they should spend "vacation", the south of France or the Caribbean. FIFTEEN MINUTES of mindless banter back and forth from people you would rather punch in the face. This is by far, the most boring movie I have ever witnessed. - Oh, and all the reviewers left before halfway through. I suffered through it just to see if anything happens. Nothing. I mean NOTHING HAPPENS.
alexdeleonfilm
Woody Allen's "Match Point" at 53rd San Sebastian in 20052EE648C9-20F9-4C8F-8452-7DC284AC5808The dominant theme at the festival this year was Hitchcock with Hitchcock imagery everywhere celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Master of Suspense. Though there actually are no films by Hitchcock on view, several films are in a way a homage to the master. "Match Point", the latest from Woody Allen is a vast departure from his usual form and is, in effect, a Hitchcockian suspense thriller filmed in London no less, with an entirely English cast except for a smashingly sexy Scarlett Johansson in a most uncharacteristic vamp role, as the sole American presence – (and what a presence she is!). Young Scarlett really sets the celluloid aflame in this stylish shot out of Mr. Konigsberg's Twilight Zone, with savvy support from Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the freaked-out lover-killer who in the end will go unpunished.... No sidewalks of New York, no neurotic Jews, no sly jokes and one liners, just a straightforward English psychodrama made with such aplomb you would never guess it was a Woody Allen film if you missed the opening credits. In a way it does hark back to Woody's Crimes and Misdemeanors, but only because of the theme of getting away with murder. Rhys is a professional but impoverished tennis instructor and bald faced social climber with clients in high society. His character marries into a wealthy family, but his social position is threatened by a steamy extra-marital affair with his new brother-in-law's girlfriend, played by Johansson. When Johansson claims to be pregnant and insists that he leave his wife for her -- which would bring down the whole world he has strived so hard to attain - she signs her death warrant. Rhys goes to her apartment, shoots her to death (in a shocking sequence) and makes it look like a robbery to obtain drugs. The rest is a cat and mouse interrogation by a Scotland yard detective with echoes of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. His skin is saved by a twist of fate similar to a tennis ball suspended momentarily on the net which could fall either way. This is, of course, the Match Point of the title. Instead of a tennis ball we have an incriminating ring from the scene of the crime which accidentally gets dumped onto the ground after teetering on a rail by the river where Rhys is disposing of other evidence from the scene of the crime. We find out that the ring was picked up by a junkie who got killed but now appears to be the indisputable culprit who killed Johansson. Case closed. Our anti-hero gets away with murder. Everything handled just right by Allen to produce a tight thriller with the kinds of twists and turns that mirror Hitchcock to a tee. Not only is this a. "return to form" for Woody, but a venture into fresh new territory -- straight drama with not a single laugh --and done like an expert born to the cloth. Most enjoyable film with an entirely new Scarlett Jo! as an astonishingly sexy femme fatale.