Crimes and Misdemeanors
by Woody Allen
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DVD details
Actor: Alan Alda, Bill Bernstein, Caroline Aaron, Claire Bloom, Martin S. BergmannDirector: Woody Allen
Brand: ALLEN,WOODY
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 104 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-06-05
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of Crimes and Misdemeanors
DVD Review: Now I understand why everybody is so crazy about Woody Allen
Summary: 4 Stars
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.DVD Review: 2.5 stars out of 4
Summary: 3 Stars
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.
DVD Review: Blah
Summary: 1 Stars
It's time I face the music, Woody Allen does nothing for me. I think I've only mildly liked one of his films and I keep watching them expecting that I'm going to have that 'a-ha' moment when it all clicks and I figure out this man's appeal. The truth is: it's not going to happen. Woody Allen's appeal is just going to have to pass me by. From what I can make out of this, the two running stories in this film have nothing to do with each other. There is a theological question posed, I supposed with Martin Landau's character and of course it's left open ended. Allen keeps trying to pass himself as a leading man, but it hasn't and never will work. I was bored thirty minutes into this thing. Watch at your own risk.
DVD Review: Walking the line between comedy & tragedy
Summary: 4 Stars
I love some of Allen's films and hate some. He did really wacky comedy in his early films, which I never liked and then broke through to a more realistic, romantic and equally funny style in the wonderful Annie Hall. His reverence for the ultra somber and serious work of Bergman spawned some of his more dreary attempts; he didn't do "serious" very well but I give him credit for trying.
Here I am amazed at how successful he is at combining his comic view with his very serious themes. He certainly has a handle on a segment of the population that bears charicature. His bombastic, egotistical producer (Alan Alda) is wonderful and I loved the twist at the end when this guy gets the girl. The successful ophtamalogist, very well played by Martin Landau, could be a source of comic contempt and he does come off that way, but still he seems human and not without his redeeming values. His hood brother, Jack, also very well played by Jerry Orbach, gives another slice of the problem of morality. Funniest, to me, was the picture of the elderly philosopher whom the Allan character idolizes. Allen, the film maker, isn't afraid to demythologize this type, either.
The rabbi who goes blind (Sam Waterston) seems to be the one character for whom Allen has genuine respect and he closes the film on a serious note by showing the rabbi haltingly dancing with his daughter at her wedding. I could argue that Allen copped out at the end by tacking a serious ending on what was, up till then, a very comic film. But I think he really did achieve something quite remarkable in this movie and I recommend it.
The whole cast shines, including Mia Farrow, who looks radiant here and Angelica Huston and Claire Bloom.
DVD Review: Heads you win, tails I lose
Summary: 5 Stars
Allen has said on more than one occasion that he doesn't have the stuff to be a director/writer of the caliber of Bergman or Fellini. But in "Crimes and Misdemeanors" he comes up to the task. The film isn't just one of Allen's best (I'm comfortable with saying it's the very best he's ever made, except for the fact that, because Allen works in at least three genres, it's difficult to compare and contrast his films). In my judgment, it's one of the finest films in American cinema.
The film is really cut from the same cloth as the medieval passion play. It explores themes that involve morality and God. In a godless universe, does it make any sense to talk about right or wrong? In a universe in which there might be a god, but one who's apparently indifferent to us, are we free to act as we wish? Allen's conclusion seems to be not unlike Albert Camus' in The Myth of Sisyphus: the universe may or may not be godless, but it is absurd. Bad guys (as personified by Martin Landau's character) do what they do without apparent retribution or punishment, but may not be easy with their gains. Good guys (as personified by Woody Allen's character) do what they do without apparent reward or acclaim, and may be just as uneasy. Most of us are simply too self-absorbed and witless (Alan Alda's character) to know that, in the end, everybody loses.
A bleak image of human existence, perhaps. But (as in Bergman's worldview), it's lightened by fleeting moments of grace: falling in love, moments of wonderment and happiness, relating to young people. We all may be losers in the end, but that needn't make life totally miserable.
Performances in the film, especially Alan Alda's and Martin Landau's, are superb. The only exception is Angelica Huston's wooden performance. But insofar as she's got to be one of the most overrated actors in the business, one doesn't expect more from her, and thus is never really disappointed.
Easily five stars.
Description of Crimes and Misdemeanors
"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.Along with Deconstructing Harry which would follow seven years later, this is Woody Allen's most somber comedy-drama, as well as his most ambitious film of the 1980s. Allen weaves together two central stories about very different groups of Manhattanites, linking them through a mutual friend, a rabbi (Sam Waterston) who's going blind. This image is key to the sometimes ponderous, often clever musings on faith, morals, and vision (or lack thereof) that obsess his deeply troubled and unhappy characters. At its center, the film explores people who, through lack of religious conviction or arrogance, rationalize their awful, selfish acts by presuming that God couldn't possibly be watching.
The central story--a neo-noir of sorts--follows a fortuitous ophthalmologist (Martin Landau, all sweat and grimaces) who faces the prospect of his obsessed mistress (Anjelica Huston) ruining his life by telling his family of their affair. Desperate, the doctor hires his slimy criminal brother (Jerry Orbach) to eliminate the situation, and then suffers overwhelming regret afterwards. The flip tale is more typical Allen. Funnier and lighter, it focuses on an impossible romance between Allen's character and Halley Reed, a film producer played by Mia Farrow. Between Allen and his Hollywood fantasy stands his brother-in-law (Alan Alda, perfectly cast as an obnoxious, successful sitcom producer), who also desires Halley. Allen is Landau's opposite: an honest, struggling documentarian who cares nothing about fortune, suffers in a loveless marriage, and is surrounded by triumphant phonies. The nice-guys-finish-last moral may be as contrived as it is devastating. Yet, when Landau and Allen finally share a final scene during a wedding, their faces, subtle body movements, and contrasting fortunes somehow suggest that indeed God may be blind, and if not, the deity has a very sick sense of humor. --Dave McCoy
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