Shadows and Fog
1991
**½
Director: Woody Allen
Cast: Woody Allen, Kathy Bates, John Cusack, Mia Farrow, Jodie Foster, Fred Gwynne, Julie Kavner, Madonna, John Malkovich, Kenneth Mars, Donald Pleasence, Lily Tomlin
When a vigilante mob call him out in the middle of the night to catch a serial strangler, a timid bookkeeper named Kleinman wanders the fog-covered streets of the city. Over the course of the surreal night, he has Kafkaesque encounters with circus performers, prostitutes, crooked doctors, and the killer himself. Woody Allen's homage to German Expressionism, based on his one-act 1975 play Death, is a lightly plotted, modest mood-piece. The cast is incredible; the film, not so much.
