Review of Crimes and Misdemeanors

Introduction

Woody Allen`s Crimes and Misdemeanours is a film that looks at the two themes suggested within the title. The themes are followed in two individual stories that intertwine neatly at the conclusion of the film. The first story looks at a married man who wishes to end his adulterous relationship. The second story follows a filmmaker who is falling in love with a female producer, while directing a documentary film on her unbearable boss and his brother in law.

Both stories are quite ambitious. One begins very seriously dark in tone, while the other story is shown as a lightweight romantic comedy. Yet they both complement each other during the duration of the film. Never does the audience feel lost or confused. It is simply laid out and the intertwining of both stories is well handed by good editing and screenplay.

One of the film anchorages is that both plot lines do question the human soul and their emotions, like most of Woody Allen films. Could a human ever live with a guilty mind? What makes this film a good view is that all central characters are everyday working people living in urban Manhattan. This makes the environment and plot of the film evermore so closer to the audiences, and thus becomes quite effective. Performances from the wide known cast is very impressive, especially that of actor Martin Landau. Production values are also quite nice.

Crimes and Misdemeanours plays like a film noir, yet becomes more of a moral tale of human selfishness.

Video

The picture is presented in its original widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1, which is anamorphic. The overall look of the film is a tad soft and could have done with some tweaking in sharpness. But this disc does reveal some detail picture information, which improves upon pervious MGM DVD releases of other Woody Allen films. No signs of compression artefacts are seen, while film grain and dirt is unnoticeable, as they remain short during the whole duration of the film. Colour saturation was good and improves upon all versions of the film seen in the past on VHS and on TV.

Audio

The sound is presented in English 2.0 Dolby Digital, but the mix is mono. The soundtrack has clear dialogues and music is quite audible. This is also the case on other French, Italian and Spanish mono soundtracks.

Features

Menus are lifeless and dull. The supplement on this disc includes just one theatrical trailer of the film. Subtitles are provided under the following tracks; English, English For Hearing Impaired, French, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish.

Conclusion

I would recommend this disc, knowing that MGM won`t re-release this film on DVD as a special edition. It’s your usual Woody Allen bare bone DVD disc with decent quality that won`t upset fans of the film.