The most glaring thing about Woody Allen’s return to form with “Match Point” was that the film was resolutely serious, a dark mix of sex, lies and murder.
Allen has gone back to comedy, and the results are lightly likable but lukewarm. “Scoop” plays at times like a comic variation on “Match Point” – once again, there’s murder afoot in London, and the same leading lady is implicated – but with a flabbier outcome.
The actress is Scarlett Johansson, signing up for her second go-round with Allen. She’s Sondra Pransky, would-be reporter at a London journalism school, who gets a tip on a hot story from an unlikely source.
A famous reporter (Ian McShane, from “Deadwood”) has died. While ferrying on his way to the afterlife, he learns that a member of the royal family may be a serial killer, the notorious “Tarot Card Killer.” It’s too good a story to let die, even if he’s dead.
So the reporter somehow materializes in the act of a second-rate magician, Splendini (Woody Allen), just as Sondra is an onstage volunteer. She gets the Tarot Card tip, the ghost de-materializes, and she’s off on a jaunt of amateur sleuthing – with the reluctant Splendini in tow.
Hugh Jackman plays Peter Lyman, the royal under suspicion, and he’s sort of playing the role Cary Grant had in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Suspicion”: the handsome charmer who would be a perfect match if not for the nagging air of murder about him. Jackman doesn’t suggest that especially well; the younger Clive Owen would have been adept at finding the darker notes.
The romance between Jackman and Johansson is dull, although there’s some fun to be had from Sondra crashing the upper-crust world with the dithering Splendini at her side.
And Allen gets off a few vintage one-liners, including the all-too-appropriate confession that while he was born into the Jewish faith, he “converted to narcissism.”
The London locations are appealing, but this movie feels much more casual than the controlled, streamlined “Match Point.” The dialogue limps, and the use of familiar classical-music snippets seems lazy.
Johansson can be a very winning actress, but here she looks as though she’s supposed to emulate the ditzy style of 1930s screwball comedy. She doesn’t have the clockwork energy or natural effervescence to do that, so the movie tends to fall flat around her. But it’s a fairly flat effort to begin with.
Hugh Jackman (left), Scarlett Johansson and Woody Allen star in “Scoop.”
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