My favourite Allen movie. Alan Alda is hilarious, and Martin Landau gives a superb performance - one of the greatest of the 1980s.

As the saying goes, there can be no argument about taste. So from the outset, I respect that others found something to enjoy about this film.

Personally, I found it tedious, directionless, and ultimately pointless. And what can we make of the idea 'that if it bends it's funny; if it breaks it's not'? Does this actually bear any relationship to comedy anywhere at any time? I suspect not. I didn't find a single thing in this movie to be funny, whether bent or broken.

I'm not convinced about the acting either. There's a lot of the sense of 'Action. Say lines. Cut.' about this. The script is prosaic, and I mean this in the negative sense, and the actors, aside from Landau, almost uniformly make no effort to imbue the text with any light or shade or, God forbid, actual drama.

I've seen a lot of movies over a lot of years, and I have enjoyed some of Woody's work very much, so I don't think this is a case of coming back to it later and re-discovering it and finding what I missed first time round. It genuinely baffles me why some people hold this movie in such high regard.