Match point

The change of locale from New York to London has done Woody Allen a world of good. As has oft been said, Match Point is his best movie since ... fill in the blank.

His first film set in London, it boasts a young, pretty, something-for-everyone cast. As enter-tainment, however, it just slams limply into the net every time.

The plotting lacks a necessary sense of tragic propulsion; it feels dutifully schematic, its ironies polite and tidy when they should be bitter and merciless.

Match Point is melodramatic, with the whole story turned on a set of unlikely and ludicrous eventualities, which Allen only too eager to call “luck”. The story makes almost zero sense, and it works neither as a drama-thriller, nor as a romance-comedy.