Val Waxman (prolific director/actor Woody Allen) is a psycho-sematic has been director who now directs deodorant and soap commercials for a living. When "Galaxy" pictures decides to re-make a classic movie called "The City that never sleeps", they have a hard time finding a really good director who will follow the rules. Figuring he has no options, they then enlist Val to direct the film, but problems begin arising when suddenly he goes blind during production and must now fake his way throughout the shoot in fear of being fired.
    After a pretty lame movie back in 2001 with "Curse of the jade scorpion", Woody Allen makes quite a comeback with this. The entire movie's entire plot as a whole is pretty ridiculous but that's what makes it enjoyable. The scenes in which he's blind, and he's blind for a lot of the film, are hilarious and manages to fool a lot of people into thinking he's a genius. At one point, he's on a fake set for his movie, and ends up taking a swan dive off the balcony of the set into a table. It's pretty darn funny. He manages to sneak past people and distract many of them keeping his secret for a long time. Some of the movie is narrated by a reporter for a magazine who observes Allen's character throughout his phase as a blind man, but senses he's a genius which is mind-boggling. A lot of the characters are very likeable, including Allen who is very funny and a great leading character. The film has a good supporting cast with Tea Leoni (Family Man, Bad Boys) who plays Allen's ex-wife whom he's still in love with, along with Treat Williams (Everwood) as the slick studio head and Debrah Messing (Will & Grace, The Mothman Prophecies) who gives a hilarious performance as the bubble-headed girlfriend of Allen's character. The best aspect of the entire movie is the dialogue. Each character has incredibly witty and funny lines, including Allen who is hilarious in this.

After a while, it gets kind of sickening watching these movies in which there are a bunch of women pining after Woody in his movies. I doubt it would be this sweet for any man of his age, and in his latest movies, there are a lot of women after him which gets very annoying and far-fetched. In this, he has three women who want him, a middle aged scrawny little man. It looks like he's living his childhood wet fantasies in every movie he makes. It get really tiring and repetitive. The movie doesn't know which theme it wants to follow. At times it tries to be a slick Hollywood themed movie, then it goes into a very
noir-ish feel. I had a hell of a time trying to distinguish which time period this movie was set in. At times, the scenery looks so 1930's and is actually set in modern times. I found that to be very annoying trying to do all that thinking. Woody goes on a roll with this movie in the first and second half but bails out in the climax, making a pretty standard and formulaic happy ending. I felt like he could have ended this a lot better, but takes the easy road out as if he ran out of ideas.

This is an enjoyable movie with a great plot and excellent script but tends to bail out in the climax with a standard happy ending.