The Snoop Scooped-Woody Allen’s Snoop- A Film Review

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

Scoop, Woody Allen, Scarlett Johannsson, Hugh Jackman, 2006, written and directed of course by Woody Allen, 2006

 

Is there nothing, no subject matter Woody Allen will not sent up in the interest of telling a cinematic tale. We have seen him give us sent-ups of film noir in films like Play It Again, Sam, gangster mystique in Take the Money and Run, fuming Manhattan matrons and fussy debutantes in, well Manhattan, the cultural wars between New York City and La La Land in Annie Hall, unrequited love in about sixteen films, and pure old fashion Keystone Kop goofiness is as many others. Now via the cinematic genre of the parlor detective story we have in the 2006 version of Woody-ism, Scoop, a sent up of the British class system and its foibles. Well, that sent-up, a goof on the seamy side of death, and Woody’s usual three thousand lines of off-beat social commentary about subjects as varied as London wrong side of the road driving, the pssh of London upper-crust society and much else. But mostly in this lesser Allen vehicle we have a twice-told, hell, many-times told spoof of who-done-its.       

Of course when Woody gets in front of the camera you are going to see the traditional almost Alfred E. Newman Mad magazine nerdy guy with about six million neuroses, and seven million off-hand biting social comment in the service, perhaps, of advancing the plot. Here Woody plays handmaiden, oops hand-man to a budding (and fetching by the way) student journalist, Sandra, played by Scarlett Johansson, who has been forewarned onto a big scoop by a recently deceased newspaper journalist (that’s the spoof of death, spoof of the inevitable grim reaper as the captain of the hereafter death ship). The scoop. Well our Johnny on the spot news hound had it on good authority from a fellow death ship passenger who believed that she had been poisoned by her employer that young up and coming aristocrat Peter Lyman, played by beautiful Hugh Jackman, was none other than the Tarot Card serial killer who had been on a rampage killing short-haired brunette hookers.        

Naturally Sandra and Woody (going under the alias of Sid Waterman, a goof second-hand magician, this time but Woody suits this one just like the thousand and one other films he has appeared just fine) are in momentarily disbelief since why would a beautiful son and scion of the English aristocracy stoop to off-hand murder when his future looked so rosy. Apparently neither had read their Shakespeare or better Holinshed’s Chronicles to know that murder most foul, high or low, is something of a blood sport, something in the DNA for this inbreed crowd. But the clues, the circumstantial evidence keeps piling up once Sandra gets cozy, very cozy with young Lyman under the sheets. Sandra had thereafter in the process of getting under those satin sheets many qualms about her new beau’s guilt but as hers disappeared Woody’s increased until that final moment when Sandra having let her guard down tells her lover about the ruse she and Woody had been playing on him to get the “skinny” on the Tarot Card murderer theory. The theory ha-ha that he was the villain. Young Lyman flipped out, had to take matters in his own hands and attempt to drown her under the mistaken assumption that she could not swim. So long young Lyman and we all hope they do not flog you for your transgressions. Oh yeah, RIP, Woody as Sid, you were a funny guy in this one but we have seen you funnier, wittier in your earlier films. This one is just okay, okay.