How can an expert film maker like Woody Allen screw up a black & white film about a town's struggles with a serial killer? Here is how.
There is not so much of a plot as there is a series of weak vignettes. Allen is Kleinman, a nebbish bookkeeper who is recruited by a band of men to help them catch a mad strangler who is terrorizing an unnamed but seemingly European city. The problem is, and the only laughs come from, the fact that Kleinman is not told what his role is in the plan, and he wanders around for the rest of the film trying to find his place in the capture. Irmy (Mia Farrow) is a sword swallower from the local traveling circus who leaves boyfriend her literal clown boyfriend (John Malkovich) and ends up in a brothel sleeping with Jack (John Cusack). She later meets up with Kleinman, and they stroll around the streets as Kleinman is eventually suspected of the growing numbers of murders. He frequently runs into people from his life, and they all have little scenes with him, before the final stupid capture of the killer back at the circus, which does not go as planned.
I would have given this film the lowest rating possible except for two things: the running gag involving Kleinman's role in the vigilante plot, and Carlo DiPalma's cinematography. The film is beautiful black and white, with great set design, and every shot is a photograph. This will remind you of those old films from the twenties and thirties, where the bizarre sets and art direction put you in a world you had never experienced before. Allen gives himself the more funny lines. The rest of his cast talks like they just stepped out of one of his modern day New York films. Immediately, you dislike Irmy and her constant whining. Ditto for Cusack, who is wasted as the john who thought he found true love. On top of all of this, Allen tries to tackle deep issues like the existence of God and the meaning of life, but he does it in such a surface way, you care about the answers as much as you care about the characters- zilch. An in-depth viewing of this might glean deeper meaning, but who wants to sit through this again and again?
Instead, you just sit watching this and spotting the stars, and there are plenty of them. A special note about Madonna. The rest of the cast overacts a little during this, maybe to make the Woodman happy as a director. However, Madonna, in her brief role as the woman who comes between Malkovich's Clown and Irmy, delivers her lines so flatly, I thought she might be talking in her sleep. I'm forever grateful that Hollywood, city of dreams and full of people who think they know what audiences want, stopped putting this woman in films and making us suffer through her acting. I was a fan of a few of Allen's films, but this indulgent failure just serves as an example of why some people out there cannot stand him.
I cannot recommend "Shadows and Fog" unless you watch it for the aesthetic beauty, with the sound down.
