Overwiew :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.
filmfreakcentral.net - : Woody Allen's work hasn't been splendid with any regularity in well over a decade, but his 1989 film Crimes and Misdemeanors is an outstanding achievement, a pensive meditation on morality in which the Woodman finally reconciles his Bergman (as in Ingmar) and schticky, uh, personas. Martin Landau stars an ophthalmologist who's lost his faith in every sense of the word: he's cheating on his wife and hasn't been to temple in years. But the pie-eyed phase of his affair is over, and while endeavouring to both end and keep hushed his bout of infidelity, he becomes a God-fearing man. Meanwhile, in a parallel (and more joke-laden) plot, Allen plays Cliff Stern, a struggling documentary filmmaker doing a bread-job TV more...
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