Stars: Martin Landau, Claire Bloom, Anjelica Huston, Woody Allen, Alan Alda, Mia Farrow, Joanna Gleason, Jenny Nichols, Jerry Orbach, Sam Waterston, Caroline Aaron, Jerry Orbach

Director: Woody Allen

Summary: CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS is Woody Allen's most mature, most profound film. Martin Landau plays Judah Rosenthal, a successful ophthalmologist having an affair with Dolores (Anjelica Huston), who is threatening to reveal their relationship unless Judah commits to her and leaves his wife. He admits his sin to Ben (Sam Waterston), a friend, a patient, and a learned rabbi who is losing his eyesight but not his faith. Judah turns to his brother Jack, who is connected to the mob and can make Dolores disappear. Allen plays Cliff Stern, a documentary filmmaker who accepts an assignment to film his pompous, successful brother-in-law, Lester (Alan Alda), a comedy star; both Cliff and Lester fall for Hallie Reed (Mia Farrow), a producer involved in the documentary. Allen the director brings all the characters together in a fabulous mix of comedy and drama, deceit and delight. CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS is a marvel of complexity, with fascinating, well-written characters; deep, complicated relationships; and thought-provoking examinations of religion, infidelity, morality, murder, comedy, and tragedy.

WIN DVDs by rating this DVD

Average User Rating:

WIN DVDS by being amongst the first to review this DVD. Reviewing DVDs earns you bonus entries and lets you WIN DVDs!Please login before reviewing this DVD. If you're a new user, register for free and enter to WIN FREE DVDs!

Along with Deconstructing Harrywhich would follow seven years later, this is Woody Allen's most sombre 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 centre, the film explores people who, through lack of religious conviction or arrogance, rationalise 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 humour. --Dave McCoy

Aspect Ratio:	1.77 Wide Screen, 16:9 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Original Theatrical Trailer, Interactive Menu Screens, Chapter Selections
Subtitles:	Danish, English, French, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish
Year:	1990
Release Date:	February 11, 2002
Runtime:	100 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	19875 D V D
Keywords:	Comedy, Off, General, Crimes, Wide, Screen, Misdemeanors, Schedule
Genre:	Comedy