Rating: 
Summary: THE OLDER YOU GET THE MORE YOU BECOME YOURSELF
Review: You either like Woody Allen films or you don't, in exactly the same way as different personalities either attract or repel. With the same person writing, directing, acting, and selecting the music, Woody's films are definitely "up close and personal." So, the basic question is do you like this "double-talking, wise-cracking, pill-popping, beaver-banging liar" as he is variously termed by the other characters in this film?Once again we have Woody's obsession with the interaction between art and reality (see also 'The Purple Rose of Cairo'). The story is about a writer who cannibalizes his own life and also feeds off those of the people around him to achieve his success. This mirrors Allen's own habits of 'narcissistic narrative' that is making films about himself and constantly recycling his life on screen. We know that it is not Harry Block who is hypochondriac, psycho-analyzed, sex-obsessed, guilt-ridden and spiritually bankrupt. It is, of course, Woody himself. The characters he creates, even the orthodox Jewish psychoanalyst played by Demi Moore, are merely aspects of himself. Robin Williams plays a character who becomes blurred so that the people around him have to get glasses to see him properly. Woody wants people to see things his way, or, even better, use this misplaced desire itself as artistic fodder. Allen seems particularly interested in the contradiction that artistic success brings wealth and fame and therefore desirability, but at the same time feeds on those closest, on those attracted by the artist's genius. Moths to the flame! This is explored to its limits as Harry becomes increasingly isolated. His ex-mistress tries to kill him, his ex-wife (Kirstie Alley) demonizes him, and even his girlfriend is more interested in Larry (Billy Crystal) a man who puts his art into his life instead of the other way round. His low point is reached when he is arrested for kidnapping his own son. This seems symbolic. Perhaps Woody feels his critics don't want him to keep using his own life as material! Harry Block/Woody Allen internalizes his whole life and experience through the characters he creates, and at the end where they hold a gala for him, they help him reach a sense of wholeness. This is a complex, multi-layered, yet fast-moving, and visually stimulating movie. The editing and flights into fantasy keep boredom well at bay. Deconstructing Harry is perhaps the best Woody Allen film since Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Rating: 
Summary: Daring Woody Allen Movie
Review: In »Deconstructing Harry«, Woody Allen is playing with effects which we are not quite used to from him. You hear swearwords, see sex scenes, and you are even taken on a trip down to Hell! Despite these surprises - or perhaps because of them - it works very well. It works brilliantly, in fact. I laughed my way through nearly all of the film. But there is a great deal of philosophy to it as well. The main character Harry (Woody Allen) who is an author is confronted with characters created by himself in his books. And since these characters are a little more than just based on persons from Harry's own life, the border between reality and fantasy becomes pretty wiped out. Very interesting aspect - and extremely elegantly constructed! The meta aspect gets and extra kick as one of Harry's first-person-characters becomes out of focus! A totally genius and hilarious detail! Which ends in the film's key quotation, said by Harry's shrink: »You expect the World to adjust to the distortion you've become!« The cast is densely occupied by stars even in small roles - Kirstie Alley, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, Demi Moore and not least GOOORgeous (AND naturally well-acting) Elisabeth Shue.
Rating:
Summary: incredible
Review: This is by far my favorite woody allen film . most people who discredit the movie do so because of course language and/or typical woody allen roles and situations. well, if you can't take a little vulgarity, f__k off this movie's not for you. It's not potty humor, it's unfiltered dialogue fitted to the characters and the situations they find themselves in. As for the typical allen scenerios of love triangles and even squares, that's what has made him. Would you expect a woody allen film where he is not nuerotic, or tense, or in constant insecurity? Then don't expect one in which all the angles of relationships are dissected and exploited.
Rating:
Summary: Allen on Allen
Review: First off, Deconstructing Harry is a interesting, often funny film that stays on track right until the ending which, in light of the rest of the film is trite. This is a story about a seriously [messed up] writer that transposes it's way between reality, the writer's stories - frequently comedic and very funny - and balancing these elements into an easy to watch, mostly satisfying film. The character, Harry is a thinly veiled version of Woody Allen although at this point there are so many films Allen has made that contain his own experience the only thing that's different here is the intense level of hostility which actually makes for good contrast to the comedic segments. Typical themes of a Woody Allen film are here; self-loathing and the artist as incapable of having relationships with women that don't implode along with a new vigor for more explicit sexual themes and language. Once more Allen plays the anti-jew - at times he appears to have borrowed that character, if not part of the Harry character from Philip Roth's fiction. There's also lots of guilt, being a questionable parent, in-jokes about critics and media....it just goes on and on. And that is why I like Deconstructing Harry. Even though we've heard it before Woody Allen manages to develop the formula to a darker depth and uglier person. Harry/Allen is not a nice schmoe that anyone could find adorable as in many previous films. The 'self realization' ending rings false in the context of this otherwise well written and acted film. It is worth mentioning in his films after this one he is indeed more relaxed and mostly back to whimsical comedies. So perhaps there's truth to the ending's 'accepting your problems and moving on' theme. This is about as negative a film as 'Stardust Memories' which Deconstructing Harry feels like an update of.
Rating:
Summary: Deconstructing Woody
Review: Although he borrowed from Ingmar Bergman's "Wild Strawberries" for this one, "Deconstructing Harry" is pure Woody. Woody Allen is a comic genius and this movie proves it. There are one or two dull spots, but by far most of it is absolutely hilarious. The film begins with a pivotal Nietzschean ("eternal recurrence of the same") moment, then enters a psychological study of the movie's unlikely hero, a neurotic writer named Harry Block (played by Woody) who, like an alchemist, turns base autobiographical metal into literary gold. Like many of Woody's movies, this one contains strong autobiographical elements and comparisons with the Woody-Mia scandal are inevitable. Great cast. Nice blend of deep, psychological/philosophical meditation and laugh-out-loud comedy. Worth watching!
Rating:
Summary: One of Woody's best!
Review: This belongs on the shelf along with the other Woody greats such as Hannah, Manhattan, Stardust Memories & Crimes and Misdemeanors. I can't imagine any objection to this movie unless you're the type that gets excited whenever you see a Tom Cruise type up on the screen. About as close to art as a movie can get and in the same league as Bergman, Wenders, Godard or any of the other greats.
Enough said.
Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable Woody Allen Film...
Review: ...but you get the feel that this road is a well trodden one. We get to see like a reshuffling of cards of Allen players perhaps in the making...Billy Crystal and Robin Williams joins the cast, Demi Moore and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobey Maquire, Kirstie Alley, Amy Irving and a cast of hundreds voice out the dialog, but instead of getting interesting and intertwining plot lines forming a decent story, we get little vignettes from the joke vault. Hilarious bits like how newlywed writer Tobey Maquire hires a oriental call girl for a tryst turning into a brush with death calling at the wrong door, Demi Moore as a psychiatrist who starts being "Jewish with a vengeance", Woody Allen going to Hades with sulphurous Billy Crystal as the Devil--well, they keep the film afloat. But, all the women cast are near hysterical and angry all the time because Harry Block is so rotten and unappealing. It's hard to see how these intelligent women fell for this cad in the first place...he starts a love affair on the way to a love affair, he's boozing half the time and popping pills the rest of the time, he's routinely employing call girls and then finds a way to put his exploits in his fiction. Not the best Woody Allen film, but an entertaining story, nontheless...
Rating:
Summary: Why do so many people dislike Woody Allen?
Review: To my mind, Woody Allen is one of the best american directors of all time. Unfortunately it seems that not many people share my opinion. Like nearly all recent Woody Allen films (the also very good "Sweet and Lowdown" is the latest example), "Deconstructing Harry" was not a commercial success. That is really a pity, because this film is among the funniest in recent years. As always, Woody delivers a film that is both witty and hilarious. The cast is close to perfection, especially Judy Davies does a brilliant job. Some reviewers found the picture annoying and self-indulgent. I think they mistakenly assume, that the real Woody Allen is portayed in the movie and not a fictional character. And by the way, who wants to know who's live is portrayed if you are so well entertained.
Rating:
Summary: One of Woody's best!
Review: This belongs on the shelf along with the other Woody greats such as Hannah, Manhattan, Stardust Memories & Crimes and Misdemeanors. I can't imagine any objection to this movie unless you're the type that gets excited whenever you see a Tom Cruise type up on the screen. About as close to art as a movie can get and in the same league as Bergman, Wenders, Godard or any of the other greats.
Enough said.
Rating: 
Summary: "DECONSTRUCTING HARRY" HAS MOST OF WOODY ALLEN'S TRADEMARKS.
Review: ** 1/2 rating for "Deconstructing Harry". This movie has most of Woody Allen's signatures: a lot of characters, complex dialogues filled with sexual references and complaints, a lot of special appearances (Demi Moore, Robin Williams, Billy Crystal), black humor, social satire and paranoia. However, all these elements are too familiar and have been explored repeatedly in Woody Allen's earlier movies. So the question here is: Is that good or bad?, perhaps the answer is BOTH. Some parts of the story are very entertaining and funny, but some of the situations are kinda boring and too familiar to someone who has seen 5 or more Woody Allen's movies. As it's usual in Allen's films, there are a lot of episodes that connect at the end, half of them are interesting and original, and the other half are recycled material from other Allen's movies. One example of an interesting situation is that the characters from Harry's books appear in front of him, giving him advises or criticizing him. In my opinion that's one of the strongest parts of this movie. And one example of a recycled situation is the love triangle between Allen, one of his former wives and her sister. We have seen this in previous Allen's films ("Hannah And Her Sisters"). For a starter in Woody Allen's movies, this should be an entertaining movie and a good start point; for someone familiar with his earlier work, perhaps this will be a minor achievement in his interesting career.
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