You know that awful feeling you have when you've done something wrong and you desperately want to keep it a secret? That's precisely the feeling you'll get as you watch our protagonist in this taut thriller from Woody Allen of all people.

Handsome Irish tennis instructor Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) lands a gig at a posh London club. He wasn't good enough to make it as a pro and loathed teaching, but relied on it to drag himself up from a poor upbringing.

He forms fast friends with his first client, Tom Hewett, a single upper-class guy who shares a passion for the opera. We begin to suspect that Chris is rather shallow "Talented Mr. Ripley" type of person, since he's shown reading Dostoevsky and then a Dostoevsky reader! While at his client's outing at the opera, he meets the family and makes quite an impression on the client's sweet young sister, Chloe. And he mentions talking Dostoevsky with Tom's multi-millionaire business tycoon father, Alec Hewett (Brian Cox.)

At a family party, he chances upon a smoldering beautiful American (Scarlett Johansson) with a come-hither look, who turns out to be his client's fiancee, Nola. You can guess about the love triangle that emerges later, followed by a murder and a subsequent investigation that keeps you guessing.

What I loved about this film was the tormented yet understated acting by Jonathan Rhys Meyers. His character is filled with tension yet struggles to keep it under wraps. Emily Mortimer was also superb as the lovestruck girlfriend and wife who was oblivious to her husband's intense attraction to Nola.

I won't delve into the love triangle or much else, to not spoil the experience for you.

"It's better to be lucky than good." This is a common theme in this murder mystery, written and directed by Woody Allen. It's one of those films that played briefly in theatres in 2005 but turned out to be a real gem, at least, for me.

My rating for this DVD is 5/5.