SCOOP

Director: Woody Allen (You might have heard of him)
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Woody Allen, Hugh Jackman

Match Point and Scoop are the Yin and the Yang of Woody Allen. They are two movies that cover the exact same ground (the English class system) in two radically different ways. Also, one of them happens to be extraordinarily good, and, well, the other one isn't. Match Point was the good one, by the way.

Unfortunately, nearly everything in Scoop feels disposable. I have a feeling that while working on Match Point Johansson and Woody Allen felt so positive about the film that they decided to do another in short order. Allen then hurredly cobbled together a script based on one of his B-grade ideas for the Match Point plot. Voila! We have Scoop.

I feel badly for Mr. Allen after seeing this film. I felt Match Point was one of the best screenplays I'd seen in many moons. His followup Scoop, however, was an atrocious bit of writing. Plot points are hurried, random and often nonsensical. Hugh Jackman's character was, well, nonexistant as a character. He was simply an occasional bit of dialog to keep things moving along. Johansson's character was a double whammy of not-very-well-written and not-very-well-acted. Allen's character existed as pure schtick, usually only borderline funny (although I did laugh out loud a few times). Even the visuals are far poorer in this film.

The plot follows Johansson as college journalism student led by the ghost of an erstwhile great reporter (Ian McShane) to investigate a spate of serial killings. The ghost got the scoop while in the beyond and needed someone, anyone, to check out the possibility that a young English lord (Jackman) may be the killer. Allen's along for the ride as a low-grade traveling magician. Although frankly, I still don't know how Allen got along for the ride in this story. Somehow, he just ended up tagging along and pretending to be Johansson's father during the investigation.

Generally, I found this story to be a cute idea with much potential for hilarity. Like most things, however, the devil is in the details and Scoop was overrun by a thousand little devils. I should note that Allen's classic neurotic Jew character does feel warm and comfortable in this film. He's done it a few dozen times by now, and as I said there were a few laugh-out-loud moments tucked here and there amongst the story. Johansson and Jackman are perfectly talented actors and even though their characters didn't really work, neither actor really let them fail either. There were certainly some bits here and there to enjoy.

Standouts: Nothing stood out, unfortunately.
Blowouts: The script. I'm not sure if any actors could have lifted this script above its high degree of averageness.

Grade: C