Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Crimes and Misdemeanors Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown December 26, 2023

I know you know what I'm thinking. I know that you know that I know. And I know that you know that I know that you know. We all watched HBO's Allen v Farrow, a tense and disturbing relitigating of the abuse allegations ex-wife and mother Mia Farrow has leveled at Woody Allen over the years. You probably have strong opinions after seeing it. I know I do. And I know there's more to the story than the documentary told. Still, I'm one of those insufferable fools who have a genuinely difficult time separating art from an artist's personal life and (potential) crimes. Once upon a time I loved a good Woody Allen flick. Now? Now I shift in my seat, have a hard time making eye contact with the screen when he walks on (seriously), and generally cannot shut off my discomfort long enough to watch a film on its own merits. It happens with new films and it certainly happens with his classics. I just can't erase the fear of what's happening at home with little Dylan who, at the time Crimes and Misdemeanors hit theaters, was four and on her way to... something traumatic happening.

If you're currently rolling your eyes, shrugging off any concern that the allegations are true, or are magically able to ignore everything you believe to enjoy a good flick, well, revisiting Crimes and Misdemeanors courtesy of this solid-scoring Sandpiper Blu-ray release will be no problem at all. Enjoy! (I mean it. I wish I could.)

'Crimes and Misdemeanors' is a 1989 American existential comedy-drama film written and directed by Woody Allen, who stars alongside Martin Landau, Mia Farrow, Anjelica Huston, Jerry Orbach, Alan Alda, Sam Waterston and Joanna Gleason. Martin Landau plays Dr. Judah Rosenthal, a prominent ophthalmologist with a successful practice, a loving family and a reputation for generous charity work. But Rosenthal also has a secret: his mistress, Dolores (Anjelica Huston). What began as a casual fling has become uncomfortably intimate. As he tries to break off the relationship, Dolores threatens to expose his infidelity to his wife and some unorthodox financial arrangements to his colleagues. Fearful that Dolores will make good on her threats, Judah confesses his secret to his brother Jack (Jerry Orbach), who has ties to organized crime and offers to "make the problem go away."

Meanwhile, Cliff Stern (Woody Allen) is a filmmaker working on his pet project, a documentary about philosopher and professor, Louis Levy (Martin Bergmann). However, films about philosophers don't pay the rent, so Cliff's wife Wendy (Joanna Gleason) arranges for him to make a documentary for public television about her brother Lester (Alan Alda), a famous TV comedian whose vapidity is exceeded only by his arrogance. While Cliff tries to bite the bullet and finish the film, he finds himself falling in love with PBS producer Halley Reed (Mia Farrow).

Crimes and Misdemeanors racked up quite a bit of praise upon its release and is still considered by some to be one of Allen's best. It not only earned three Oscar nominations (Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Landau), it wooed critics and brought in audiences to the tune of a then-impressive $18 million box office haul. And it did so with a challenging, almost disorienting gimmick that was more genius design than cheap trick: hopping jarringly between comedy and drama, from one story to another, weaving two distinct films together into one wild genre-leaping ride. It's an admittedly bold, daring experiment, particularly for a 1989 film billed to the masses as a comedy, and it represents peak Allen, when stardom had begun to be the ordinary order of the day and his artistry and finesse as a writer began to solidify into something greater than his previous works had achieved. However, Crimes and Misdemeanors wasn't a perfect blend then -- dividing, even confusing audiences with its flip-flopping nature -- and it isn't a perfect blend today, being a film that has been largely left in the past by filmfans who favor earlier and later movies in the writer/director's canon.

The performances are uniformly excellent, with Landau and Alda stealing the show. Not to be outdone, the supporting cast knows their roles and focuses on delivering precisely what Allen requests, regardless of how chaotic and confounding the shoot must have been at times. (Be funny! Be serious! Lighter! Darker! Back and forth, back and forth.) The laughs hit and the drama grips. The dual stories may not unite as seamlessly as intended -- even savvy viewers may be left trying to understand how the two fit together on every level Allen intends -- but the humor, heart and heartache remains intact. The biggest drawback is, in fact, that the cast of characters is so broad and the genres so distinct that there are long stretches of the film where it feels as if you're jumping back and forth between two Blu-ray players, watching two cleanly delineated, very separate, sometimes disparate movies.

By the time Cliff and Judah meet by pure, fateful coincidence -- no doubt inspiring the structure and third act of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa's Crazy Stupid Love, among many others -- it feels as if Allen is a child smashing together balls of Play-Doh. He does it with panache, style and trademark wit, and almost, almost pulls off some fantastic genre sleight of hand. But the melding of two contrasting perspectives and colliding outlooks on life comes too late and offers too little in the way of revelations or epiphanies. I get what Allen was going for. I just don't think he sticks the landing. And I still have a hard time separating fact, fiction and a director who may have done (and probably did) some horrible, terrible things in his personal life.

Crimes and Misdemeanors Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Sandpiper appears to be utilizing the same (or a virtually identical) 1080p/AVC-encoded video transfer featured on the now out-of-print 2014 Screen Archives Entertainment limited edition released by Twilight Time. Reviewer Jeffrey Kauffman gave the presentation a very high score of 4.5, and while I have no intention of debating a subjective analysis, my subjective tastes and analysis lead to more reserved praise. Colors are strong and lovingly saturated, but I found the palette's earthy tint, subdued contrast leveling, and at-times orange and pink-skewed skin tones to be less than appealing. Check the screenshots accompanying this review and you'll probably see exactly what I mean. You can judge accordingly, by your own standards. Otherwise, there's little to complain about. Black levels are deep and pleasing, delineation is sound, and detail is natural and refined. The film isn't razor sharp, but then again, it hails from 1989, when every edge didn't look like it could slice through a soda can. Textures are cleanly defined and fairly revealing, and edges are free of the artificial sharpening that sometimes haunts last-generation masters. I also didn't notice any sign of compression artifacts, banding or errant noise. Grain is present but unobtrusive, only adding to the better qualities of the presentation.

Crimes and Misdemeanors Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Sandpiper's DTS-HD Master Audio mono track is much easier to critique as it both honors the film's original sound design and theatrical presentation and grants a bit of new life with some extra polish here and there. The age of Crimes and Misdemeanors is never in doubt, but there also isn't much in the way of wear and tear, warbling, ineffective prioritization and other such issues. Dialogue is clean and clear throughout, the instrumentation of the light music employed doesn't disappoint, and sound effects, though the sort of canned, hollow effects you'd expect in 1989, are more than adequately supported.

Crimes and Misdemeanors Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Alas, no significant special features are included.

Crimes and Misdemeanors Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

To follow or not to follow. How does one handle revelations and accusations of previously brilliant actors and filmmakers? Does it change the art? Does the crimes Kevin Spacey is accused of committing diminish his performance in The Usual Suspects? Do the accusations leveled against Woody Allen spoil Crimes and Misdemeanors? That's a question much larger than I can answer, and one you'll have to answer for yourself. It is a unique and bold film, where two polar opposite stories -- one comedy, the other a drama -- crash together to less than spectacular ends. It works, mostly, although Allen struggles to stick the landing. Sandpiper's Blu-ray is a decent little release too, with a flawed but above average catalog video transfer and a solid DTS-HD Master Audio mono mix. In true Sandpiper fashion, there aren't any extras, but it isn't too big of a deal.