IRRATIONAL MAN: not bad, but empty

Woody Allen’s latest, Irrational Man, is about a burn-out who revives his joie de vivre by committing a very grave crime, in the process self-administering a shot of metaphorical adrenaline.  That’s all there is in Irrational Man, an entirely plot-driven movie.  Skip it.

To be sure, as one would expect with a Woody Allen movie, it is well-acted.  Joaquin Phoenix plays the kind of iconoclastic academic whose womanizing and drinking was part of his dashing charm until he sagged into middle age.  The ever-lively Parker Posey is a faculty member who is bored with her life and her marriage.  Emma Stone plays the precocious but impressionable coed.  Besides the cast, the best thing about Irrational Man is the music, especially a wonderfully raucous version of The In Crowd by the Ramsey Lewis Trio.

Here’s my discussion on Woody Allen and his filmmaking career.  Despite Irrational Man, I’m a fan.

[SPOILER ALERT:  I don’t understand how it’s possible to make a non-exciting movie scene centered around Russian Roulette, but we don’t even momentarily cringe at this one.  Maybe it’s the combination of having to explain what Russian Roulette IS (to a character who had somehow made it to college without hearing of Russian Roulette), and then having the ONE CHARACTER who we all know is going to make it to the climax of the movie pull the trigger at the mid-point.  Yawn.]