Rating: 
Summary: A brilliant screenplay writer puts out Garbage like this?
Review: This juvenile screenplay with it's porn situations and filthy language is beneath him, as a writer. I would
expect a writer of his caliber to be able to create more than this. The filthy language and plot would be suitable to a B movie that is written to appeal to 14 year olds who think it's cool to hear these vulgar words used over and over again. Pick up your pen and write Mr. Allen. We know you can do better than this.
Rating: 
Summary: Woody at his NASTIEST!!!
Review: This is the meanest, nastiest, most vicious we've seen Woody Allen. And so much of it is directed towards himself. We certaily all know that Allen's films are very much about himself and his persona, but this one is filled with a heavy dose of self-loathing. It also has very little good to say about anyone else, particularly women. It's just a bit frightening how much vitriol Allen has. His character (a writer instead of a film mater) only seems to like his son and a prostitute.But as the movie progresses, he gets little telling glimpses of the effect he has on others, and how this has helped make him so unhappy. Will he change...doubtful. But at the end, we feel like maybe we've gotten a fairly unsugarcoated look at how Woody Allen really feels about himself, his art and the women in his life. The movie is really, really funny. It's extremely foul-mouthed (do not let kids near it...it makes Mira Sorvino in MIGHTY APHRODITE seem quite tame). You also get to see some familiar actors doing some pretty down and dirty things...Julia Louis Dreyfuss in a rather explicit scene with Richard Benjamin...that alone is an eye-brow raiser. The normally sweet Tobey Maguire is a sex-crazed younger version of Allen...to comic effect. Judy Davis (one of the best actresses anywhere, period) is funny as a pistol-wielding former lover of Allen's, spouting intelligent (and extremely obscene) insults at him, while slowly coming unglued. We see a number of Allen's character's short stories acted out, and those are often amusing little ditties, although the one with the old Jewish couple is just silly. Another one with Robin Williams (as a man who is becoming "unfocused") is very amusing. One excellent scene has Allen surprising his sister with a visit while he's on a drive to upstate New York to get an award. She's married to a very conservative Jewish man, and has really turned her life over to a life some might call zealot-like (certainly Allen does). The pain of Allen's and his sister's relationship is palpable...there's real pain on both sides...and real love. Something we don't see often in Allen's glib, cynical world. The cast is unformly great (with one exception...in a moment). Allen, Davis, Dreyfuss, etc. Robin Williams makes a brief, amusing appearance, along with Julie Kavner. Imagine those two married!! Demi Moore, in a tiny part, is tolerable, and Billy Crystal is amusing as the Devil (yep, Allen's character goes to hell towards the end, and the conception of hell is pretty funny and pretty elaborate for a Woody Allen movie). The exception to all the praise is Elizabeth Shue. I'm sorry, but she seemed to have spent all her talent with LEAVING LAS VEGAS. She is simply terrible in this film (and others, like THE HOLLOW MAN & COUSIN BETTE), playing the part of Allen's current love interest. Seeing Allen with all these young beautiful women in movie after movie is always hard...but they usually come across as intelligent and perhaps it is the shared intelligence that Allen and these young beauties have that make their relationships tolerable. Shue, on the other hand, comes across as vacuous. She almost looks like she's reading cue cards. The few scenes she is in totally grind the movie to a halt. But, that flaw aside, see this movie if you like Woody Allen, and frankly, maybe if you don't like him. He might agree with you!
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting concept
Review: Another reviewer said this movie could be called "Woody on Woody," and that is certainly true. Allen's character, Harry Block, is a writer who uses his own life as fodder for his work. Writers will find it an interesting take on the writer's life. It is clearly an allegorical comment on Allen and his own experiences. The casting is fabulous and the humor is dark and often painfully funny. However, Allen's character is so unlikable, that I found the film only moderately entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: A provocative provocation
Review: I got tired of hearing mediocre, middle-of-the-road "comics" like Jay Leno bag on Woody Allen a LONG time ago. None of them have the talent or insight to say anything new or interesting, let alone funny. No, it just goes to show, if you want something done right, ya gotta do it yourself. Woody tears himself apart masterfully in this strange and sympathetic portrait of a childish, self-centered, womanising creep of an artist. With great cameos from Robin Williams, Demi Moore, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Mariel Hemmingway, Elizabeth Shue, Bob Balaban, Stanley Tucci and especially Billy Crystal and Kirsty Allie, how could it not be good? Deconstructing Harry is easily the high point of Allen's recent work. In fact, it's my favorite of all his work.
Rating:
Summary: 8 1/2 (a)
Review: this is fellini, woody allen style. "deconstructing harry" consciously mirrors fellini's masterpiece "8 1/2", a film about a director suffering from "director's block", who is confronted by the people in his life (past and present) and forced to face his shortcomings. allen's film is nowhere near as lush and lyrical, however, as "8 1/2". nevertheless, it's a nice flick from the wood-man and does shed light on the relationship between his art and his personal life - not that his other films are exactly reticent on that subject!
Rating: 
Summary: A Good "Starter" Woody film
Review: This was my actually my 2nd Woody film, but the experience will live with me forever. I saw it with a college buddy...we were bored and watched in hope of being entertained....boy were we ever! Thanks to the endless list of famous names in the credits, thanks to Woody's artistic integrity and darkly tickling sarcasm, thanks to a screenplay that could easily keep the attention of any ADD sufferer, thanks to the transcendance of the traditonal "conflicting-mid-life/marriage-crises" plot Woody is famous for, and thanks to a great soundtrack, that night became the most memorable one of my college experience. Thank you Woody Allen!!..no matter what people may say about the guy...(and you could search over a thousand movie buffs and rarely find a true Woody fan)..he is a genius in the sense of transmitting the human experience with words (like the classics), but also with pictures and sounds of careless humor. We need more....much much more!
Rating:
Summary: Racism? Where???
Review: First I would like to address the movie as a whole. I am a huge Woody Allen fan so to me everything he does is art.. However, I am not above criticizing. I agree with previous reviewers.. this is not his best work.. then again this was during his 90's down period. Now, for my point of contention: Why is it racist when the fille de joie (aka, harlot) is of African American decent?
Would it have been better if she were Polish, Greek, French, or South American?? I don't understand this double standard.. and frankly I'm sick and tired of the rabid sensitivity concering the "race" issue. There is prejudice against all ethnicities.. Blacks are not the only ones to have been persecuted in history.
Rating:
Summary: A Rancid Piece of Gutter Trash
Review: Earlier reviewers are dead-on accurate when they call this movie racist. It is. I cannot conceive how Woody can have such veneration for jazz and jazz musicians, then cast black actors only as domestics or prostitutes. Besides the loathsome stereotype that Hazelle Goodman is asked to perpetuate here, there's also the movie-within-the-movie mammy from Purple Rose of Cairo...if you needed another cringe-inducing example. Racism is only one problem. Rampant smuttiness is another. Woody's descent into vulgarity is neither funny nor insightful. The plangent quality that gave Husbands and Wives such a ferocious bite doesn't work here. And the waste of good actors in over-large ensembles is more egregious here than usual. Mature and womanly Amy Irving shines in her all-too-brief scenes; she looks radiant --and there's a moment, only a moment, where she and Woody walk side by side quietly and you get this glimpse, this miniscule Annie Hall-ish glimpse of what might have been had Woody still been in possession of a compass be it artistic or moral. Mariel Hemingway's cruel treatment, on the other hand, is particularly revolting in light of her past work with Allen. It took 18 years after the majestic Manhattan for him to cast Mariel again, and when he does it's to insult her in a pointless throwaway bit. To say one good thing, I did find it hilarious that Eric Bogosian is cast so far against type. Yet finding him funny as a devoutly religious man depends on your familiarity with Bogosian's wild and wooly stage persona. Here, Woody sets up the potential gag and then does _Nothing_ with it. If you want to see a biting, acerbic satire by Woody Allen, try the overlooked gem Stardust Memories. Save yourself a little contamination by steering clear of this toxic mess known as Deconstructing Harry. It is not only the worst movie Woody's ever made, this would be at the bottom of the trash heap no matter who [produced it].
Rating:
Summary: Another Masterpiece from Allen.
Review: I thought that was truly a great film. It may be hard for some people to why I think that. This film is about coping with reality by creating fanatasies and the relationship of an artist's life to his art and his art to his life. It's also about the problems Allen's character has dealing with others, problems that he creates. I think Allen accomplished all of these things brilliantly and gives us a picture of an immature artist that other's can relate to. Though the character may not be likable at all, all of us can understand at least a little of what he does.
This is one of Woody's films heavily influenced by Bergman, specifically his "Wild Strawberries". It also reminded me alot of Fellini's "8 1/2". Allen uses the device of allowing us to see what the character is thinking through his daydreams and his rembrances, like Fellini and Bergman did. Allen also let's us see how Harry imagined the fiction he wrote, fiction which was based upon his own life. And like Fellini Allen's character interacts with the characters he created in his mind. At the end of 8 1/2 there is a dance of life, where all the characters from the main character's fantasies, rembrances, and real life are all dancing around the completed movie set, celebrating life. At the end of Deconstructing Harry there is a celebration of neurosis where Harry accepts his award in front of his imagined characters and some people from his real life. While Fellini and Bergman may have celebrated life and death respectively, Allen celebrates neurosis.
I don't think I've adequately explained what makes this movie great. I think you would have to see Wild Strawberries and 8 1/2 and then this movie to truly understand. I think this film spoke to me so much because I am also a writer, I don't know if a non-artist would respond to it the same way. But I know that this is a film masterpiece and I hope that it's not the last one Woody has for us.
Rating:
Summary: Allen's self-exploration vignettes
Review: Weaving between fiction and reality, Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry tells the tale of a writer's sexual exploits, romantic failings, and dealings with depression. Allen's character Harry transfers his life's problems into his books, which causes much strife between the real-life counterparts in his world. Once again Allen has leveraged his considerable fame to draw in Hollywood's elite. Throughout the film, every face is a familiar one. Billy Crystal is portrayed as the devil who steals Woody's romantic lead, Robin Williams as a blurry actor who can't get his focus, Kirstie Alley as a ex-wife who discovers Harry has cheated with a patient, and countless more celebrity cameos. The joy in partaking in this film is evident in the celebrity actors who appear. There's a certain prestige in such an endeavor, and we, the film audience, can identify just about everyone in the film. At the same time, each character that appears has so much baggage in our minds. For instance, Demi Moore appears as an ex-wife. How many of us can honestly think of her in any way other that her celebrity profile. While this isn't a major problem, identifying with some of the celebrities proves difficult at times. Deconstructing Harry catalogs Woody's struggle with sexual desire and his inability to love. Early on we discover that he has finally found true love in a pupil, Elizabeth Shue, but she has fallen in love with his friend. The plot is shaped around Harry's self-identity questions, and the character's goal is to go to an honorary ceremony at his alum. He has nobody to take. His ex-wife won't let him take his son, his girlfriend has left him, and a hooker is the only one around that will take him up on his need for companionship. The play between Allen's semi-autobiographical stories, which flash to and from reality, illuminate the film and shows how Allen's writing channels his depression and gives him a release from an otherwise ugly life. After viewing Deconstructing Harry, I wonder how autobiographical it really is.
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