Match Point

Woody Allen’s streamlined erotic thriller (2005) is similar to his Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) but with more clever and intricate plotting, less rhetorical flab, and no distracting one-liners. An Irish upstart (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) marries into the London aristocracy but betrays his new wife (Emily Mortimer) by having an affair with an American expatriate (Scarlett Johansson) who was previously engaged to his brother-in-law (Matthew Goode); threatened with exposure, he begins entertaining thoughts of murder. An efficient genre piece with a few provocative metaphysical trimmings; the mainly English cast is effective. R, 124 min. (JR)

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