Release Date:  July 28, 2006
Rating:  PG-13 (for some sexual content)
Genre:  Comedy
Run Time:  96 min.
Director:  Woody Allen
Actors:  Woody Allen, Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johansson, Ian McShane

Last year,  "Match Point" re-established Woody Allen as a filmmaker of consequence, a director and screenwriter who proved he had not completely lost touch with the moral questions that inform his best work. The troubling but effective film grappled with questions of the conscience in the wake of moral transgression. Its answers were, on the surface, disturbing – a perversion of justice that seemingly allowed a guilt-ridden soul to become hardened in his disregard for authority and any sense of decency.

"Match Point" couldn’t have come sooner. Allen’s personal foibles had long since cast a shadow over his increasingly stale attempts at comedic filmmaking – the occasional Oscar nomination ("Mighty Aphrodite", "Bullets Over Broadway") notwithstanding. Does anyone remember Allen’s "Anything Else," from 2003? No? How ’bout "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion"? Me neither. "Melinda and Melinda"? That was just last year!

So it’s somewhat surprising to discover that Allen has followed the triumph of "Match Point" with yet another light comedy, this one retaining "Match Point"’s London setting and that film’s lead actress, Scarlett Johansson, in a dialogue-heavy comedy that runs out of gas long before it reaches the finish line. It’s essentially two people talking, then three people talking – but it’s only fitfully amusing.

What sets "Scoop" apart from Allen’s other recent comedic attempts is a great performance – from the one actor who could be construed as even hotter these days than Johansson: Hugh Jackman. The "X-Men" veteran turns on the charm as Peter Lyman, wealthy son of an aristocrat and, according to a tip that reporter Sondra Pransky (Johansson) receives, quite probably the “Tarot Card Killer,” who leaves his trademark cards on the bodies of London prostitutes.

The tip about Lyman comes from deceased journalist Joe Strombel (Ian McShane), whom we first meet on a boat captained by the Grim Reaper. Strombel, whose earthly life was cut short by a coronary thrombosis, chats up the other passengers during his journey to the Other Side, and in so doing hears evidence that Lyman is indeed the reputed serial killer.

Not eager to meet his eternal fate (“Where you’re headed, there is no first, only last,” one passenger tells him), Strombel jumps overboard and then appears to enterprising young reporter Pransky, whose interaction with Strombel’s spirit occurs during her stint as a volunteer participant in a magic show put on by the Great Splendini – stage name of Sid Waterman (Woody Allen).