Woody Allen

[P_R]

In C&M, the deception is possible because it's handled in a compromised manner. That we feel more for Landau is problematic. What if he was directly involved in the murder & then earns the sympathy? Not having to let his brother's hitman to get the job done? What if he didn't have a loving family & had to leave it all for aging air-hostess, who uses his financial misappropriation for blackmail purposes? That would be a real challenge.

Hmm....as I said. I think it is important that Landau himself does not kill in cold blood and has someone else do it for him.
At one point he talks about turning himself in only for his brother to shake him up saying, he won't let him bring him down along with him (damn these pronouns).
Landau insinuates that the brother threatens to snuff him out too.

He is probably not going to turn himself in. Not because he brother will kill him. But rather because he is unwilling to bring his brother down with him. Or so he would tell himself. If not for such familial appendanges, as a 'pure' individuals is his guilt so big that he would have turned himself in. I don't think so to. But now he can contemplate 'what he would have done, if only...'. An intellectual who has the dirty business taken care of by others, thus he is left with the luxury of pure contemplation. The blood on his hands is figurative.

There IS a duplicity here but it is a very deep one, not excluding self-deception. Remember, he can't bring himself to order a hit. He would rather not actually say it than have his brother infer it.
These are precisely the things I found C&M did so well.

I'd prefer if the feelings were reserved more for the real victims than the self-absorbed loser.

Hmm...I felt the film was all about this contrast.
One man who walks away from murder by merely taking a vacation (on can't but think of Dolores wanted to take a vacation to calm things out between them) while another is having his worst nightmare realized(and we also know his wife is going to leave him, so he is about to get his commeuppance!). The latter is crushed by the very reality that he takes pride in being out of step with, while the former, though equally contemplative of deeper issues, manages to handle things deftly when push comes to shove. His remorse itself was a luxurious stint at moral high ground, lady doth protest too much.

It seemed that their physical union was a way to offset & release the hassles of having to 'conform' to the highbrow.

Yes it felt so to me too. But I didn't find it immoral or deplorable, because Brian Cox and his wife are - even though the former is polite and accommodative - not people the audience warms up to. We feel a social camaraderie with Nola and Myers.

And it didn't need a philosopher's v-o over a montage!

Even C&M didn't need Levy, did it? It was an interesting snippet. The most interesting thing about the character was his suicide. The man who had it all figured kills himself. It makes us think about murder, whether ending a life is that big a deal etc. That more than any of his points about love.