MOVIE REVIEWS : Woody Allen Wrestles With Illusion, Reality in ‘Fog’

When it comes to getting his films made his way, Woody Allen is clearly the King. Studios bid lustily for his services when and if they become available, actors from John Malkovich to Madonna consider it an honor merely to be asked on board, and audiences show up with a pleasing regularity no matter what he puts on the screen.

But, despite what Mel Brooks said a few years back, it is not necessarily good to be the King. Sometimes it means that your sketchiest doodles get treated seriously, that your eager actors are overqualified for what you have in mind, and that an amiable but underwritten tale that is not really going anywhere makes its way to the screen. Such is the case with “Shadows and Fog.”

Of course, given that Woody Allen is Woody Allen, all is hardly lost. Not all his films are comedies, but when they are, as this one sort of is, there are always witty situations to marvel at and funny lines to relish. And the cast is sure to include Mia Farrow, who, in the dozen films she has done with Allen, has put together a collection of performances that is always engaging and often very much more.

And in truth one of the oddest things about “Shadows and Fog” (selected theaters, rated PG-13) is something Allen could’ve had no control over, and that is how much his film has in common with Steven Soderbergh’s benighted “Kafka.” Both are shot in black and white, take place after dark, involve homicidal maniacs on the loose in a central European city, and have a protagonist who is a prisoner of powerful forces he understands dimly if at all.

And though “Shadows” was shot not in gorgeous Prague but rather in a make-believe metropolis created by production designer Santo Loquasto on a sound stage in Queens, it has much the same heavily shadowed, Expressionistic look to it, and an identical opening, in which an unknown man is murdered on a deserted street by the most demented of madmen.

But “Kafka” does not have the reassuringly comic presence of Allen as mild-mannered clerk Max Kleinman and it is him we see immediately after the murder, awakened from a sound sleep by an angry group of neighbors. They expect the killer to strike again that very night and they have a plan to capture him in which Kleinman’s participation is essential.

Naturally Kleinman dresses hurriedly, accepts some pepper from his landlady to blow in the maniac’s face, and runs out only to find his neighbors have vanished, neglecting to tell him what his part is to be. He spends the rest of the film’s flimsy 86 minutes wandering the city’s streets in a futile attempt to find out what’s expected of him, a piece of knowledge everyone he meets seems to know but is unwilling to share with him.

Also out on the streets this night is Irmy (Mia Farrow), a sword swallower from a traveling circus who has had a fight with her smug clown boyfriend (John Malkovich) over a sexy tightrope walker (Madonna).

It’s not long before Irmy and Max run into not only each other but also the vigilantes, the maniac, and assorted other late-night types, including prostitutes, carousing students, even an olfactory clairvoyant.

As has happened several times in the past, the serious soul in the writer-director can’t resist letting his characters indulge in long stretches of metaphysical speculation, asking weighty, perplexing questions about illusion, reality and the very meaning of existence. These queries mix awkwardly with the comedy (not to mention the film’s frequent in-jokey references to everything from “Nosferatu” to “Cul de Sac”) giving “Shadows and Fog” the haphazard hit-and-miss feeling of an idea not worked out to its full potential.

And having a high-powered cast including Kathy Bates, John Cusack, Jodie Foster, Kate Nelligan, Donald Pleasence and Lily Tomlin fill even the tiniest roles only makes it more obvious how thin the material they have to deal with is. Despite all the craft that went into it, the wonderful Kurt Weill music on the soundtrack and the occasional bits that work as intended, “Shadows and Fog” is a disappointment. Nobody but Allen could have gotten it made, and maybe that should have been taken as a warning instead of a challenge.

‘Shadows and Fog’ Woody Allen: Max Kleinman Mia Farrow: Irmy John Malkovich: Clown Donald Pleasence: Doctor John Cusack: Student Jack Julie Kavner: Alma Kenneth Mars: Magician

Released by Orion Pictures. Director Woody Allen. Producer Robert Greenhut. Executive producers Jack Rollins, Charles H. Joffe. Screenplay Woody Allen. Cinematographer Carlo DiPalma. Editor Susan E. Morse. Costumes Jeffrey Kurland. Production design Santo Loquasto. Art director Speed Hopkins. Set decorators George DeTitta Jr., Amy Marshall. Running time: 1 hour, 26 minutes.

MPAA-rated PG-13.