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Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993)

Director:
Woody Allen
COUNTRY
USA
GENRE
Crime/Drama/
Comedy/Mystery
NORWEGIAN TITLE
Manhattan mordmysteriet
RUNNING TIME
104 minutes
Producer:
Robert Greenhut
Screenwriter:
Woody Allen

Marshall Brickman


Cast includes:

CHARACTER ACTOR/ACTRESS RATING
Larry Lipton Woody Allen
Carol Lipton Diane Keaton
Ted Alan Alda ½
Marcia Fox Anjelica Huston
Paul House Jerry Adler ½
Lillian House Lynn Cohen
Helen Moss Melanie Norris ½
Nick Lipton Zach Braff

 

Review

Woody Allen raids the vault of old classics and his own early films for this constructed and painfully manic version of Rear Windows for the neurotic. Woody teams up with Diane Keaton for the first time since Manhattan (not counting Radio Days) as the two jog each other up to record-breaking levels of fussiness, wandering around in staged and allegedly mysterious situations while keeping a consistent conversation about intellectual meanderings and their neurological state. In essence, Allen presents very little new here, especially characterologically. His script has great bits of comedy in it, but he doesn't know when to stop his scenes or mouth, and the mystery not surprisingly turns out to be rather contrived making the film lightweight and rather shallow. That is a shame, because the film starts off promisingly with pleasantly natural conversations between desexualized couples and newly divorced bachelors, and the film has potential when it comes to the romantic relations and the study of once bubbling marriages gone still. Manhattan Murder Mystery is a sad document of how out of fashion Woody Allen was in the early 1990s, from the weary thematics to the horrible wardrobe and the unflattering camerawork and lighting.

 

Copyright © 7.1.2009 Fredrik Gunerius Fevang

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