"With a little luck, the ball goes over, and you win. Or maybe it doesn't, and you lose."

There is much to admire about Woody Allen's latest, Match Point. It goes without saying that Allen is as wedded to New York settings as any director could be — so the ease with which he takes on London in this film impresses me. I felt like I was seeing London through the eyes of a person of real culture; the way he uses the layout of the Tate Modern to generate some moments of drama is one of many skilled touches. The cast is strong across the board, the script fairly sings (not five minutes into the film you see the setups happening and feel the tension building, without knowing where it's all going), and this may just be the closest he will come to repeating the greatness of Crimes and Misdemeanors.

And that, unfortunately, is the one small but significant problem with this film — a couple of moves, in the last five or ten minutes, that simply come too close for comfort to the earlier film. While there's no reason not to enjoy Match Point, thoroughly, on its own wonderful terms — and while, yes, he does have a somewhat different thematic direction in mind this time — anyone familiar with C&M is bound to feel just a little cheated.