Crimes and Misdemeanors | Caroline Aaron, Alan Alda

Crimes and Misdemeanors | Caroline Aaron, Alan Alda | Woody at his best !

DVDs:

House, M.D. - Seas... State of Play String Bob Hoskins Crimes and Misdeme...

	Crimes and Misdemeanors Caroline Aaron, Alan Alda MGM (Video & DVD), 2001 average customer review:based on 79 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

"Poignant, penetrating [and] scathingly hilarious" (Long Beach Press Telegram), Crimes and Misdemeanors is a deftly rendered tale about the complexity of human choices and the moral microcosms they represent. Showcasing Allen's brilliant grasp of the link between the funny and the fatal, his 19th movie is "one of the watershed films of his career" (Los Angeles Times). Cliff Stern (Woody Allen) is an idealistic filmmaker until he's offered a lucrative job shooting aflattering profile of a pompous TV producer (Alan Alda). Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau) is the pillar of his community until he learns that his ex-mistress (Anjelica Huston) plans to expose his financial and extramarital misdeeds. As Cliff chooses between integrity and selling out, and Judah decides between the counsel of his rabbi (Sam Waterston) and the murderous advice of his mobster brother (Jerry Orbach), each man must examine his own morality, and make an irrevocable decisionthat willchange everyone's lives forever.

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Not so Petty 'Crimes'

One of the greatest dilemmas a director can face is making a likable, relatable film when nearly all the characters presented are thoroughly unlikable. This is one of the dilemmas Woody Allen faces with his film Crimes and Misdemeanors. Let's take a look at the main hero of the film. Here is a man, Judah, in an unhappy marriage caring on with another woman for over two years who decides it's time to kill her off before she releases his secret to his wife.

How can such a man be presented as likable? Well, Woody Allen's best decision is to make him an everyman. A man caught up in the situation in which he must face his demons head on. He has made a mistake and he must deal with the consequences of such mistake. In an ordinary Hollywood film, this would mean him being caught and forced to pay for the crime that he has committed. Such is not the case here. Sure he has some regret but, by facing and admitting to what he has done, he is able to move on with his life. One of the great strengths of this film is that it doesn't shy away from what Judah has done. It doesn't make light of it and it doesn't deny that it has happen.

He is simply a man who has made this mistake and is forced to go on with his life carrying this horrible mistake. Should he have gone to jail? You bet. Should he have told his wife about his adultery? Of course. But, that is not how life works. We live in a world where we don't always get what is coming to us. Great things happen to bad people everyday and vice versa. I don't believe this makes a bad guy, just a realistic one. By crafting a movie with a central character with real flaws, Woody Allen has created a movie of uncommon power. Four days after seeing it, I still can't get it out of my head. What a great film.

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Woody at his best !

This picture, along with "Hannah and her Sisters" and "Zelig" are, to this date, Woody's best films. Well, you can add "Radio Days" and "The purple rose of Cairo" to the list. It's a "to see you is to love you" kind of film. The screenplay is as polished as it can be, the cast shines throughout and you'll leave the theatre with the feeling (very rare theese days) that yu've seen a great movie. No wonder the crew gave a round of standing applause after some scenes were shot.

Moving, funny, cinical and very, very humane, it's not to be missed.

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Now I understand why everybody is so crazy about Woody Allen

After watching Woody Allen's two recent movies - "Vicky Christina Barcelona" and "Cassandra's Dream" - and being a little disappointed, I was unsure why Allen was regarded as a great writer and director. Now I know why. "Crimes and Misdemeanors" is a complex story, funny and tragic at the same time, and certainly never dull. My only complaint is that the movie has two separate story lines that I kept waiting to come together and intertwine in some amazing way, but they barely did. I also see why people think Woody plagiarized himself in "Cassandra's Dream." "Brothers-in-crime" story lines in these two movies are very similar.

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2.5 stars out of 4

The Bottom Line:

An unsucessful merger of two vastly different plots, one of which would be given the attention and nuance it deserved 16 years later in Match Point, Crimes and Misdemeanors is one of Allen's bleakest films but not one of his best; watch Match Point for the thriller plot or Hannah and Her Sisters for the relationship plot.

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