Woody Allen’s “Crimes and Misdemeanors” is one of his finest, yet darkest comedies he’s made. It brings up themes of human morality and meaning in life by dabbling in adultery and other sin, in this case a murder/assassination, which are familiar traits that can be found in one of his other masterpieces, “Hannah and Her Sisters.”
Martin Landau plays a respected ophthalmologist who has been seeing another woman for two years behind his wife’s back. She can’t live without him and wants to reveal herself to his wife, and he can’t deal with her neuroses and threats, so he has his brother, a sketchy con artist, arrange to have her killed.
These scenes are played strictly seriously, and Landau is excellent (he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1989) as he reflects on the religious ideas he sacrificed and forgot, only to have them now gnaw on his conscience as he questions how God judges sinners and what that has to do with his life on Earth in the present. Continue reading “Rapid Response: Crimes and Misdemeanors”