Crimes and Misdemeanors

Name: Crimes and Misdemeanors
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Released: October 13, 1989
Duration: 104 min
Rating: 77
Cast: Martin Landau, Woody Allen

1989

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 10 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Universal acclaim based on 60 Ratings

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8.4

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8.4	User Score Universal acclaim based on 60 Ratings

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Crimes And Misdemeanors

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Movie Details & Credits

Orion Pictures Corporation | Release Date: October 13, 1989 | PG-13

Starring: Martin Landau, Woody Allen

Summary: The film's title indicates the themes of two separate stories: 1) a renowned opthalmologist is desperate to cut off an adulterous relationship...which ends up in murder; and 2) an ethically frustrated documentary filmmaker woos an attractive television producer while making a film about her insufferably self-centered boss. [MGM]

Director: Woody Allen

Genre(s): Drama, Comedy

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 104 min

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Metascore

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Critic Reviews

100

Peter Travers

In this risky, riveting film, our most prolific and provocative moviemaker uses his wit to touch a nerve. Crimes and Misdemeansors is so funny it hurts.

100

Vincent Canby

Mr. Allen's most securely serious and funny film to date. Read full review

100

Roger Ebert

In the world of this film, conventional piety is overturned and we see into the soul of a human monster. Read full review

Richard Schickel

At times the joints in the movie's carpentry are strained, at times the mood swings jarring. [16 Oct 1989, p. 82]

TV Guide Magazine Staff (Not Credited)

Fine ensemble acting (Alda and Huston are outstanding), evocative composition and design, intelligent writing, and spritely musical score. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

Alda is perfect casting as a successful TV comedy producer, whose pompous attitude and easy romantic victories with women (including Farrow) exasperate Allen. Read full review

Jonathan Rosenbaum

None of the characters or ideas is allowed to develop beyond its cardboard profile. Read full review

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User Reviews

j30

Nov 9, 2011

A fantastic film that's not your typical Hollywood movie. This movie gets me pumped on movies again. A really dark comedy and one of my favorite Woody Allen movies.

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JMH

May 7, 2012

Woody Allen's probing Crimes and Misdemeanors tells two stories that turn on a single question: What do you see when you look in the mirror? One tale is a drama centered on Judah (Martin Landau), a successful ophthalmologist who ends an affair by having his mistress (Anjelica Huston) killed.Woody Allen's probing Crimes and Misdemeanors tells two stories that turn on a single question: What do you see when you look in the mirror? One tale is a drama centered on Judah (Martin Landau), a successful ophthalmologist who ends an affair by having his mistress (Anjelica Huston) killed. The other tale is a farce centered on Cliff (Allen), a struggling documentary filmmaker, his brother-in-law Lester (Alan Alda), and Lester's colleague Halley (Mia Farrow). Lester's an acclaimed TV producer. To please his sister (Joanna Gleason), he allows her husband Cliff to film a documentary about him. The stage is set for Judah and Lester to confront unflattering, even damning, portraits of themselves. Judah's self-confrontation is direct. When told the murder plot's a done deal, Judah enters his bathroom, looks at himself, washes his face, and looks at himself again. Can he come to terms with what he's done? Lester's self-confrontation comes via Cliff's documentary, a mocking portrayal wholly at odds with how Lester sees himself. Is this cause for Lester to reflect on the man he is? Guiding us through the two men's journeys are a rabbi (Sam Waterston) and patient of Judah's quickly losing his sight, and a philosopher who's a pet documentary subject of Cliff's. The former appeals to redemption via faith, and the latter to redemption via humanistic reason. Both are hopeful men who see inherent good in human nature. Yet the film's events pointedly ask whether their optimism's well-founded, and ultimately whether the answer even matters. Crimes and Misdemeanors is plainly a morality play - one that might have fallen flat in lesser hands. In Allen's hands, the overlaying morality play is told with a blend of gripping drama and trademark Allen humor, resting on a screenplay so taut and sophisticated that the rest of the film falls into place effortlessly. The result is a brilliant, engrossing film - one of Allen's very best.… Expand

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J-Shap

Aug 27, 2011

Not only has Allen finally learned that he can make a drama with his own style, and not imitating one of his idols, he can also ask philosophical questions without seeming pretentious. Crimes and Misdemeanors holds his grip on drama, while never losing itself, due to the split narrativeNot only has Allen finally learned that he can make a drama with his own style, and not imitating one of his idols, he can also ask philosophical questions without seeming pretentious. Crimes and Misdemeanors holds his grip on drama, while never losing itself, due to the split narrative between Landau's drama, and Allen's dark comedy.… Expand

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talisencrw

May 13, 2016

Definitely top-tier Woody Allen. The writing, acting and directing are first-rate, as he finishes off another of his artistic purple patches. I'm not an Alan Alda fan in the slightest simply because he's so good at this slimy, know-it-all persona that he once again carries off soDefinitely top-tier Woody Allen. The writing, acting and directing are first-rate, as he finishes off another of his artistic purple patches. I'm not an Alan Alda fan in the slightest simply because he's so good at this slimy, know-it-all persona that he once again carries off so effortlessly here. An essential watch for all cinephiles, and worth a purchase and rewatches for Woody Allen enthusiasts.… Expand

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amheretojudge

Oct 2, 2019

Allen's intuition has barely gone off track, he is to-the-point, sharp and poetic in his steps.

Crimes And Misdemeanors Allen's crime drama too is a love story. He just can't help it. And you cannot hate that about him. It is simply inspirational and adorable. The writer and director WoodyAllen's intuition has barely gone off track, he is to-the-point, sharp and poetic in his steps.

Crimes And Misdemeanors

Allen's crime drama too is a love story. He just can't help it. And you cannot hate that about him. It is simply inspirational and adorable. The writer and director Woody Allen is one romantic fellow. He can and does romanticize the idea of murdering someone. That foreplay of God that he imparts on us as wisdom and practicality that zaps you like a lightning bolt, is his version of making sense out of a narration. And no one writes like him. So what if there is a character similar to him, always, running around the screen. No one has produced these many avant-garde ideas so exceptionally and convincingly that his filmography starts calling itself out for a specific taste.

A sense of humor is a second thing, the sense of romance should be your priority when you jump in on his train of thought. There is an incoherent rush through the film. Either accelerated by subtle humor or self-mockery or intense drama or plot moving forward with an incredible pace. Either way, the film keeps you at the edge of your toe, instead of being calm and present. It is present for it thinks a lot.

Each character is told to decide repetitively on the screen. Which makes you, the viewer, understand, empathize and even nod to the decisions they would go for or lead towards. By then, it wouldn't matter what they choose to do or be. The journey, the pain, the pressure that they make "punish" themselves with redeems their credit points in front of our eyes. It is a story that is far from gangster genre no matter how familiar their action grows. Crimes And Misdemeanors also gets the "close calls" right and like no one. What they do, what he has done, is that he didn't keep any.… Expand

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lasttimeisaw

Aug 30, 2013

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Another Woody Allen delight, a diptych of two moral conundrums, Laudau, a well-off ophthalmologist who ultimately gets away with the murder of his badgering mistress (Huston), meanwhile a frustrated documentary filmmaker (Allen) flunks to win his love interest (Farrow) over a pretentious showbiz magnate (Alda).

For Laudau’s story, one can easily sniff out the comparability of Allen’s later London-based MATCH POINT (2005, 7/10), the other women are merely dispensable in favor of wealth, social status and ostensibly stable matrimony. In this film, its main concern is the struggle within, the general moral conscience Vs. the guilt or the sin, and out of left field, it is the latter eventually prevails, with the trappings of a comfortable life, the murder becomes a petty snippet in his memory and time can put everything back into an equilibrium, it is beyond any religion’s absolution. Landau delivers one of his best performances in his lengthy career, an outright leading role (again, shamefully the category fraud push him into supporting group in the Oscar race), a hypocrite sleekly justifies his selfish and heinous behaviors with superfluous paddings, a despicable person so full of life with mocking caricature and a tint of self-reflection, everyone has his or her own unsurmountable hurdle in reality, luckily the preponderance is able to rein the yardstick. Anjelica Huston breaks her lofty stereotype, to overplay an unreasonable mistress who is too desperate to shore up her wanting sense of security, as vexing and halfwitted as she is, her denouement is too much a punishment.

As for Allen’s romantic entwinement with Farrow and his doomed marriage, it brims with casual wisecracks and addicted cinema-goings, but the scene-stealer is Alda, whose character is blatantly based on the late writer Larry Gelbart, utters bon mots like, comedy is tragedy plus time; or if it bends, it's funny, if it breaks, it isn’t. He is snobbish and lewd to everyone’s eyes, yet he walks off with Allen’s soul mate. Woody Allen is rehashing the same old self, and Mia Farrow refrains herself as an out-of-his-league dame, who speaks highly about her unrealized ambition in order to reject a man trapped in a dead wedlock, yet subservient to the mogul’s courtship, it all boils down to the point of a woman’s self-deceptive blindness towards material needs, with a collateral damage to her unsuccessful suitor. So in both stories, the female characters are less glamorous and adorable here, not to mention Allen’s sister’s icky sex encounter in the bedroom.

The film is mostly brisk under the accompany of a jazzy score, and its debate on moral structure is a cogent one and could be a reference to all the contemporary marital or relationship mishaps, even the religious mumble-jumble has an epiphany on those non-believers.… Expand

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Spangle

Apr 13, 2014

I could never really get into this one. There are a lot of philosophical questions being discussed, largely of the ethical nature, but it just felt really pointless to me. Maybe that was the point, I'm not sure, but regardless, it never really grabbed me. At the end of the day, I just sawI could never really get into this one. There are a lot of philosophical questions being discussed, largely of the ethical nature, but it just felt really pointless to me. Maybe that was the point, I'm not sure, but regardless, it never really grabbed me. At the end of the day, I just saw two pointless stories being told for some unknown reason and totally lacking in interest. One story was somewhat interesting, the one concerning Martin Landau's character. There was plenty of depth there and it really does save this movie as we see him grappling with the decisions he had made. On the other hand, the story concerning Woody Allen's character is annoying and a waste of time. It felt like they did not feel they had enough with the other story and tacked this on for no reason. Really, all we see is a man who is wrapped up in his hatred of this other guy and let's it get to annoying heights. Luckily, there are occasional moments of comedy that help bolster this one up a bit as well or else the rating would be far lower. I really do not understand the praise for this one.… Expand

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