Working the crowd on Charon's ferry of dead souls across the Styx, a cheerful hustler tells his fellow voyagers to the Underworld: "You are all wonderful, and I really mean that; you may be deceased, but don't let that discourage you." Words to live by... or hold dear thereafter.
Ian McShane is the "famous English journalist" who will indeed not be discouraged. He may be dead and buried, but his dive from the ferry into the Dark River opens the story, as he is swimming back to the shore of departure, a veritable Blythe Spirit in the drink. No force can hold back a journalist in search of a scoop, especially if it's a big one. How big? He has a certain tip about the identity of the Tarot Card Killer, the serial slayer of London prostitutes, who happen to have short brown hair.
So begins Woody Allen's new opus, "Scoop." It is, simply put, a comic delight. If you look beyond simplicity, there are some problems with the film, but on the surface - which is where discussion of summer movies should focus - it's all fun and games.
Hearkening back to the good old days of "The Pink Panther" (forget, if you can, the recent awful remake), "Scoop" combines comedy, suspense, and romance, in a lopsided proportion of 80:15:5. The 5% romance figure is obtained from the somewhat unconvincing vertical and horizontal interaction between Scarlett Johansson and Hugh Jackman. The 80% figure for giggles comes from Allen's performance, bits of stand-up interspersed with a story.
Johansson is a young American, aspiring to a career in journalism, although more versed in dental hygiene. During her visit to London, she becomes entangled in the dead man's quest for the scoop. Jackman plays the dashing British aristocrat who is the object of both her (strong) suspicion and (mild) affection. There should be a conflict there, but it doesn't quite come through, and Johansson's lackadaisical performance is no help.
Unlike his judicious absence from his last, excellent, film, "Match Point," Allen is all over the place in "Scoop," providing all the laughs, and turning a movie into a stand-up routine every time he appears as Splendini the Magician, or in his real identity, as Sid Waterman, an annoying shmuck from Brooklyn. How he ends up pretending to be the Johansson character's father? You must see the film (and, specifically, one its best scenes) to find out.
The one-liners are good, the story is OK, but the twain don't quite meet. Enjoy the components separately, and don't ask for such pretentious stuff as structural integrity or believability. Allen the story-teller, who keeps interrupting the story with lengthy shticks, might have met his demise, but don't let that discourage you from enjoying "Scoop."
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