Woody Allen's second film to be shot in London is neither as interesting a misfire as Match Point, the patchy comic drama that preceded it, or as bad as Cassandra's Dream, the flat-out awful tragedy that followed. Scoop begins in the afterlife, where deceased journalist Joe Strombel (Ian McShane) discovers the identity of the Tarot Card Killer - a murderer who is terrorising the capital. Returning briefly to the mortal world, his ghost appears to American journalism student Sondra (Scarlett Johansson), who is helping magician Sid (Allen) with a vanishing act, and gives her the killer's name before disappearing. Sondra and Sid join forces on a trail that leads them to the handsome Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman), at which point this clumsy but amiable farce lurches into straight thriller territory and Allen loses all control of the already wayward plot, eventually settling for a climax that wouldn't even pass muster in a made-for-TV murder mystery.

An American journalism student in London scoops a big story, and begins an affair with an aristocrat as the incident unfurls.