CURSE OF THE JADE SCORPION, THE (director/writer: Woody Allen; cinematographer: Zhao Fei; editor: Alisa Lepselter; cast: Woody Allen (C. W. Briggs), Elizabeth Berkley (Jill), Brian Markinson (Al), Helen Hunt (Betty Ann Fitzgerald), Wallace Shawn (George Bond), Dan Aykroyd (Chris Magruder), David Ogden Stiers (Voltan), Charlize Theron (Laura Kensington); Runtime: 103; DreamWorks Pictures; 2001)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A pleasant film that is not all that good as far as the crime caper story goes, but still has something about it that is endearing. It's in the tradition of Hollywood films as escape vehicles, as it evokes a nostalgia for those kind of B-films that the studios used to routinely put out and were not that worried about the gaffes in the production. If you're a fan of the 1940s film noir, especially the classy Billy Wilder "Double Indemnity," then you should find much in this latest Woody Allen comedy/mystery film to remind you of that film and others like it. Woody sets this film in 1940 and catches with amazing accuracy the upholstered apartment furnishings, the lingo of the times, and the clothing worn and hairstyles. It was like watching one of those B-films, but instead of being in B & W this one is a lazy color version of it. It's the kind of faded out coloring that would have been used to make a 1940 film noir, if they were made in color. The retro scenes of all the interiors were exquisitely designed by Santo Loquasto and shot by Zhao Fei in mostly plum and gold colors that burnished on the screen.
The film is set in NYC in 1940, in an insurance office where 20 year veteran fraud investigator for the insurance firm, C.W. Briggs (Woody Allen), solves cases by intuition, luck, his contacts with street characters, and by knowing the ins and outs of the city. He's a slob at keeping an apartment, a bachelor womanizer (he had a short and bitter marriage), a losing gambler, and a man in his 60s who loves his job and the camaraderie he has among his fellow workers and has no other ambition except to score an occasional young tootsy and solve fraud cases. Into his satisfied life comes a brainy, slim blonde, efficiency expert, Betty Ann Fitzgerald (Helen Hunt), who has been hired six months ago by the boss, Chris Magruder (Dan Aykroyd), to modernize and streamline the place. She has the upper-hand, even though he's a star claims investigator, because she's sleeping with the married boss, and therefore is making life difficult for the recalcitrant investigator. These two are opposites and hate each other resulting in a war of words, as she rubs him the wrong way even further by changing the antiquated filing system he is used to. The only satisfaction they get is from sounding each other out, as one-liners keep coming throughout the film from both of them. When he tries to smooth things over with her, he only makes things worse by taking her to a dive he hangs out in, Rocky's bar.
Celebrating the birthday of his coworker, George Bond (Wallace Shawn), an amateur magician, they go catch a nightclub magic act. The magician Voltan (David Ogden Stiers) uses Briggs and Fitz for subjects and hypnotizes them by having them gaze at the 'Jade Scorpion' pendant to fall in love with each other, which his coworkers find very amusing. But the evil magician has other plans, as he never releases them from being under his command. When Briggs is home, he receives a call from Voltan and he puts him under again by bringing up the word Constantinople and has him rob the jewels of the wealthy Kensington home. That's a home he made burglar-proof. After the robbery his memory draws a blank about what he did, as he investigates the robbery for his firm and believes it's an inside job.
Women are used by Briggs as sex objects as Elizabeth Berkley plays Jill, a sweet secretary with a low I.Q. he has the hots for and has an ongoing affair with, while Charlize Theron is Laura Kensington, an immoral heiress who finds Briggs as someone different to go to bed with from her usual pretty-boy athletes. She's made to look like a poster version of Veronica Lake but she acts like the vampish Carmen Sternwood (Martha Vickers) from "The Big Sleep." When she comes to his shabby flat and peels off her trench coat to let him look at her nude body, he's all wired up for a night of sex when the phone rings and the evil magician puts him under again. After the phone call he talks in a trance-like abnormal way to her about having to leave, as he goes to rob another house.
Admittedly this is all a thin and rather predictable story incorporating the usual Woody nebbish sexist and egotististical character, and to make matters worse it comes with an unbelievable heist plot and with mechanical one-liners with silly double-entendre sexual meanings. It's a role that he's ritualized and could do it sleepwalking by now. But it worked for me because I didn't care about all that and instead got caught up with the film's casual look and the way it caught the look of the period's film noir, and I found the clash he had with Helen Hunt brought out the sides of his personality that he's battling within himself all his artistic life. They were a perfect duo, complementing each other's missing needs. Woody seems more relaxed in this role than he has been in his more recent films. This one being his 31st. And, since the film has no artistic pretensions--it's more a homage to the B-films of the forties, it seemed easier to handle than some of his more recent ritualized Woody-by-the-numbers flicks or those pale imitations of those European auteurs he so much admired like Bergman--films he slavishly imitated that never worked for him. Mind you, this is not a good film but one that can be viewed as an escape from reality. Something that is not all that bad during these troubling economic days of that compassionate conservative administration of President Bush. Seeing this film made me forget for the moment about Bush's war on stem cell research and the way he goes out of his way to please his extreme right-wing supporters and those big corporations that also supported him. The same purpose could be said of those early films in the forties, with the world being invaded by Nazis. Escape films were very much in vogue and served a purpose. I don't usually care for escape films, but every so often they feel right and can be enjoyable if you can really escape reality by watching them. Those are the kinds of films I let my critical guard down on, and that's the case with this Woody Allen flick.
REVIEWED ON 9/18/2001 GRADE: B-
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
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