Match Point

Allen can really surprise us even at an older age and he proves that he is far from done, and if he has the same tenacious roots as his dad, he will still please us film fans with a decent line of movies. Match Point is a film where I couldn't guess the name of the director and creator of the story and screenplay in advance. The film breaks away from the traditional pattern of Allen's intellectual conversation films and is more of a fateful psychological drama supported by a crime plot. The story of a careerist who wanted everything and in the end had to sacrifice a lot and some people paid a heavy price for his rise. The film's strength lies in the excellent portrayal of society and the psychological profile of the individual characters in the story. It is a very believable affair supported by great acting. Scarlett Johansson is charming and playing these types of femme fatales comes naturally to her, and the other actors also give great performances. A distinctly European film that is one of the best Allen has ever made. It proves that he is not only capable of comedy. I didn't miss not seeing him as an actor in the film at all. Overall impression: 95%. (17/01/2009)

I like the love triangle according to Woody. I completely disagree that this isn’t a Woody Allen classic. It seems to me that it retains his style. And if he was improvising in a new direction, it was just an added bonus. What caught my attention was the Scarlett as a blackmailer and Jonathan Rhys Meyers as a man who is incapable of arranging his life rationally. But I don't mind at all that he did it irrationally... at least that meant there was more drama. Crazy, but good. 4 stars. (21/08/2011)

The "hard" cinematography and the narration going through an avalanche of dialogues with the absence of visual narration initially confuse the viewer, but the dream romance turns into a drama, then into a thriller, and the morality falls on its face into the mud. That’s quite an unorthodox way to go against the sunshine trend, which Allen does get to with a very shaggy insert from the detective office. However, it was probably all worth the feeling of Dostoyevsky turning uneasily in his grave a few times. (22/08/2014)

Romance novel material. Or maybe even lust novel. After many years of not such good movies, Woody really needed the ball to fall on the right side of the net, even if it meant a drop shot. Moving the acting to London giving it a hint of Hitchcock won him the entire match. And as his following movies show, this was no swan song or stroke of luck. Thank god. (26/12/2008)

When the main "hero" of Woody Allen's film (the supremely unsympathetic Jonathan Rhys Meyers) reads Dostoyevsky's ‘Crime and Punishment", it can't turn out particularly well for him... Or can it? Match Point is an excellent spectacle. It doesn't matter that almost nothing happens during the first hour that the viewer wouldn't expect, because what happens next and especially at the end makes up for it. However, I have to disagree with the opinions that there is no humor in the film. There is. It's black through and through, but it's there. (10/07/2015)