StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

apollomoonprint Woody Allen, among the Elite of Film Director's in Film Industry, & 4 time Academy Award winner, has created a luster which continues to shine since before his Masterpiece, Mahattan, who else can speak (Woody is so leveled headed, "bragging" is never synonymous with this genius,) So many others can learn from his Sanity,. Oddly enough Johansen, who is a rare miscast, nearly ruins the film, but Woody's genius saves the day. Filmed in London, a refreshing departure from Woody's New York domain, where filmmaking representation has never been equaled on Mr. Allen's respected level.

James Hitchcock Top tennis players are not generally notable culture-vultures- Jim Courier was allegedly much teased by his fellow-professionals for his habit of reading literary fiction such as Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City" in the locker room- so heaven knows what the men's tour would have made of Chris Wilton, the central figure of this film, with his love of Dostoyevsky, Modernist art and Grand Opera.As the film opens, Chris, who hates the stress of touring and realises he will never be a Grand Slam champion, has retired from professional tennis and is working as a coach at an exclusive London tennis club. Drawn together by their shared love of opera, he befriends a young man named Tom Hewett, one of his pupils at the club. Tom introduces Chris to his wealthy family, and before long everything seems to be going his way. Chris ends up married to Tom's sister Chloe and is given a job as an executive in the family firm."Match Point" was written and directed by Woody Allen, but during the first half it bears little resemblance to what we have come to think of as a "Woody Allen film". It is set in London rather than New York, none of the characters are Jewish- Woody himself does not appear- and it contains little or no humour. For much of its length it resembles nothing so much as a melodramatic soap opera set among the moneyed classes, "Westenders" rather than "Eastenders". Despite his marriage, Chris cannot resist having an affair with Tom's ex-girlfriend Nola, a beautiful but struggling American actress. Nola, however, is not content with a mere affair. She wants Chris to divorce Chloe and marry her. He does not want to do any such thing but manages to string Nola along by making promises he has no intention of keeping. Matters come to a head when Nola reveals that she is pregnant and threatens to inform Chloe about the affair.It is at this point that "Match Point" starts to resemble a Woody film, one Woody film in particular- "Crimes and Misdemeanors" from 1989, which also dealt with a successful professional man threatened by an inconvenient mistress. In this case Chris, who knows that a divorce would jeopardise his job and his social position, reaches the same conclusion as did Judah in the earlier film- his mistress must die. He comes up with an elaborate scheme to kill Nola and make it look as though she was killed by a burglar.Like "Crimes and Misdemeanors" , "Match Point" can be seen as Woody's debate with the spirit of Dostoyevsky over the themes of his "Crime and Punishment", the novel which Chris is seen reading. Like Dostoyevsky's anti-hero Raskolnikov, both Chris and Judah are atheists and, whereas many people without religious beliefs nevertheless have strong moral principles, they take the view that "Si Dieu n'existe pas, tout est permis". They believe that, if necessity so dictates, any crime, up to and including murder, can be justified.Self-plagiarism is not always a good idea unless one can equal (or, better still, improve upon) one's previous effort, and I am afraid that here Woody falls a long way short of equalling the success he had with "Crimes and Misdemeanors" (in my view one of his greatest films), still less of improving on it. This is only partly because Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Chris is not nearly as good as Martin Landau, who played Judah. "Crimes and Misdemeanors" is a much more complex film in which the bleakness of the "Judah" plot is counterbalanced by a more positive viewpoint put forward by Sam Waterston's rabbi and by a lighter tragi-comic subplot involving Woody himself as one of his trademark neurotic worriers and which contains a good deal of humour. As he demonstrated in "September" (in my view one of his worst films), Woody does not always handle high seriousness unrelieved by humour very well."Match Point" is at least better than "September", for two reasons. The first is that some of the acting is good, especially from Scarlett Johansson as Nola, a tragic figure who genuinely loves Chris and cannot quite accept that he is only using her for sex. (She prefers to believe that he is emotionally torn between her and Chloe, but the truth is that Chris does not love either woman and is only using Chloe for her family's money). Johannsson was a late replacement for Kate Winslet who was originally cast in the role but dropped out.The second reason is the film's ending. Chris has always believed in the importance of luck, comparing life to a tennis match in which a player can either win or lose a point depending on which side of the net the ball falls. The question of whether Chris will be found guilty of Nola's murder or escape scot-free depends upon a similar matter of chance- and there is a brilliant twist at the end, worthy of a great writer like O. Henry or Roald Dahl. The difference is that the twists produced by Henry and Dahl came as the climax to intriguing, economically-written short stories. Woody's twist comes as the climax to a meandering and at times rather dull long story. 6/10

osmangokturk it is a story about "money can't buy love" and also the story about "money buy love and make one the slave of it".Movie musics are mainly from the opera. It fits the surround and theme. You feel that that classic operas are not so distant and are living today and we are part of these operas. In using the opera in a movie, I was quite impressed. The movie chooses the extreme point, a British noble family to easily convince us about the wealth and comfort and not to show us how the wealth could really sometimes make things more complicated. Also, the elements of love were so smartly figured that it does not bother, and the crime is so humanly depicted that you totally fall into it. The movie also touches to the fact that different classes can not go along well and also shows that how people easily become the slave of wealth and comfort. the movie tricks us by making the chances for the badman. The movie tests some hypotheses as well. Is he going to go with his real love or the socially acceptable one? Is he going to get rid of the yoke and free himself or is he going to kill his hope and subdue?

bazt-93964 The vague and vacuous title of my review very much resembles that of the film itself; Match Point. Within the context of this production, what exactly does it mean? So, yes, one of the leading characters was a former tennis pro but that seems about the only reference to the film name. Neither have I read any review or reference to the fact that this is all very bizarre. As for the movie itself, I have never been a fan of Woody Allen but the large part of this film is engrossing with greed, morals and attitude's of the monied classes very much to the fore. Towards the end there is an inexplicable act that doesn't in my opinion justify the angst that has led upto it. However jolly entertaining.