Scoop (2006)

Originally Reviewed

Wednesday November 22, 2006

I have truly attempted to get into Scarlett Johansson’s rather blah style of acting, and I would be more than happy to add her to my Answer's Angel section, because she is incredibly gorgeous. Unfortunately beauty is a very minor part of getting on the list, you also have to be a talented actress and have a majority of fresh films, and unfortunately Scarlett has yet to impress me with any acting ability. Luckily Scarlett's incredibly bad acting and dorky look in Scoop didn't completely ruin this film for me, and surprisingly Woody Allen made this film half-way enjoyable.

Scarlett Johansson plays Sondra, an over enthusiastic journalist student who finds herself in the middle of incredible story that no one else has. During a magic show performed by the great "Splendini" (Woody Allen) Sondra is chosen from the audience to come up on stage and participate in a disappearing act. She's put into a box where all of a sudden she is startled by the spirit of a reporter named Joe Strombel.

Strombel claims to have the story of a lifetime, he says that the wealthy and handsome Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman) is the infamous tarot card killer. The tarot card killer has been baffling the police for quite sometime; all of his victims fit a certain profile and there was always a tarot card left at the scene of the crime. Wanting to be the first person to break this story and start off her career with a bang Sondra decides to look into it and sets off to find out some more about Peter Lyman, with the help of Splendini. She goes undercover as an actress named Jade Spence, with Splendini posing as her father, Sondra sets up a situation to get Lyman's attention and Lyman instantly falls for her.

The two begin going out on a regular basis, Sondra and Splendini take any chance they can get to snoop around, both are able to come up with a lot of coincidences with the murders but are unable to find any creditable evidence in which to pin them on him. Meanwhile the murders continue to occur, and Sondra begins to find herself falling for Lyman. Is it possible that Lyman is the serial-killer when he seems to be such a charming and innocent guy? And how will he react when he finds out that his whole relationship with "Jade" has been a lie?

Scoop has a very independent feel to it, mostly brought on by the fact that it doesn't have a much of a soundtrack, there's hardly any background music and whenever there is it's usually the same song. I was surprised that I enjoyed this film, since I'm not a big fan of independent films, Scarlett Johansson, and especially Woody Allen. Ironically, Woody Allen ended up being Scoop's saving grace and is the only reason this film could be classified as a comedy. Of course when you speak a mile a minute and every word out of your mouth is an attempt at something funny, you have to land a few decent lines.

As for Scarlett, she is incredibly annoying for the first thirty minutes, and then eventually you get used to her strange attempt at over acting. She's always had a rather boring and sullen tone in most of her films, in this one she attempts to be enthusiastic and peppy but it's incredibly awkward to watch, almost as if she's retarded and attempting to be intelligent and witty. Almost anyone else in this role would have made the film a lot better. As for Hugh Jackman, he was definitely the shining star in terms of acting, putting Scarlett's dry enthusiasm and Woody's rambling to shame.

In the end, Scoop is a rather entertaining comedy which offers a story that should hold your interest for the entire film. The run-time is perfect, anything over an hour and a half would have been torture, but it seems to find a nice ending point. The acting isn't anything great, and the comedy all comes from Woody Allen's character and no one else. It's a film worth checking out at least once; it didn't impress me that much but it turned out to be a fairly entertaining, average little low budget comedy/mystery. 

7/10