Review of Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) by Brian R — 02 Dec 2010

"Manhattan Murder Mystery" is kind of like watching the main characters from Annie Hall sixteen years later. Allen and Keaton still have that great acting chemistry from the 1970's even though you can see they are at the age of riping in the 1990's. The story involves a murder of an old lady, Keaton immediately gets obsessed trying to find out if the old lady's husband Mr Houseman(Jerry Adler) has anything to do with it and doesn't want him to get away with murder. Allen thinks Keaton's character is crazy but eventually believes her when Keaton's clues become more evident.

MMM also involves two supporting characters played by Alan Alda and Anjelica Houston. Houston is how Allen puts it "dangerously promiscuous" and a great scene while they flirt and talk about playing bridge but not that kind of bridge game a card player would be thinking about. Alan Alda plays a buddy type but wouldn't mind tapping Keaton's ass while out on stakeout.

MMM is sort of immaturish and unbelivable. The scene where Keaton's character breaks into the old man's house then hides under the bed felt a little flawed. A scene where Allen lights a match at the bottom of a tenement building reminded me of Teddy Daniels lighting a match in "Shutter Island", or another scene where Allen and Keaton follow Mr Houseman to a Blue Collar plant was a little unbelivable watching two middle aged people acting like they still got some juice from the "Annie Hall" days. It's a cool scene due to the digetic music and the red visuals but again two middle aged adults running frantically trying to stop Mr Houseman from burning his wife at the plant? No.

Is MMM a bad movie? I don't think it is but one might be put off by the nervous hand held camera moves. Allen has a great love for Manhattan, mystery, sexual inuenndos, the golden age of cinema, and music. As for murder? well let's just call it a bold experiment.