Woody Allen is high point of his own movie

Dreamworks

Woody Allen and Helen Hunt star in Allen's new film, 'The Curse of the Jade Scorpion.' Allen plays an insurance investigator, who is, according to Hunt's character Betty Ann, a 'shallow, skirt-chasing egomaniac.'

After sitting through "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion," the latest screwball comedy from writer/director Woody Allen, you get the feeling that Allen's love of '40s jazz music is what drove him to make the film. While the music and Allen himself liven things up, the story doesn't jibe with the remainder of the cast or the score.
   Allen stars as CW Briggs, a "shallow, skirt-chasing egomaniac" according to Betty Ann (Helen Hunt), his insurance firm's new efficiency expert. But Briggs sees himself as New York's top insurance investigator, the Zeus of his own paperwork-infused kingdom.
   Briggs' secret to success: he methodically gets into the mind of the thief to crack each case. Plus, he's well-connected with a circuit of homeless beggars who supply him with clues and information to track down even the slickest of thieves.
   Briggs and Betty Ann despise each other and, while at a group dinner, the two are selected by the restaurant's performing hypnotist as volunteers. When he says the right word, the two venom-spitting antagonists fall in love.
   Hint hint, the hypnotist then controls two people with intimate knowledge of the safety systems of New York's high society. Jewels are soon stolen from one of their company's clients, and Briggs is on the case with Betty Ann ripping him the whole way. They're only in love when the hypnotist says the magic words.
   Much of Allen's comedy is gimmicky and relies upon heavy slapstick, but it doesn't work here. The film drags for about a half-hour before it starts to find itself, and even then it lacks a clear identity. The addition of the eerie hypnotist seemed to come across well in previews, but his role in the film becomes irritating and predictable.
   Allen's trademark, cynically downtrodden wit is omnipresent, as are his clever one-liners. When CW's horse comes in seventh, he laments, "Never bet on a horse with Parkinson's."
  
  

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