Review of Irrational Man (2015) by Craig T — 27 May 2016

Woody Allen has for some time been fascinated with murder, a subject he treated in Crimes and Misdemeanors. and Manhattan Murder Mystery. Here he takes it on a different setting and mixes it with another fascination, philosophy, which he gave an excellent comedic treatment in Love and Death.

Unlike Crimes and Misdemeanors, the murderer here does not commit the crime for selfish reasons that benefit himself, but for what he feels is the "greater good," removing a corrupt man to let justice triumph.

However "pure" his original motives may have been, he only committed the murder because he felt he could get away with it, and when he is faced with being found out, he is willing to commit murder of an innocent person to keep himself out of paying the price of his crime.

This fact is probably the reason he doesn't get away with it, unlike the miscreant in Crimes and Misdemeanors. But I still feel Allen's true forte is comedy, which is what his best received films have always had in common.