Cassandra's Dream - C+

On DVD

After his successful (but a little over-praised) Match Point, Woody Allen returns to London for another morality play. This one involves 2 brothers (Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell) with money problems who ask their uncle (the great Tom Wilkinson) for help. When Wilkinson asks them to murder someone set to testify against him, they reluctantly agree. Casting McGregor as the alpha-male and Farrell as the conscious-laden pantywaist is problematic mostly because Farrell naturally exudes confidence and isn’t a good enough actor to pull off a “coward” (he’s quite excellent in In Bruges, though).
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McGregor is pretty good but he’s stuck in a routine plot with unmemorable humorless dialogue. Plots about gambling debts were old in the 1930s, and have rarely been successful (Mean Streets is the most notable exception). It doesn’t help that the similar-themed, spectacular 2-brother crime drama Before the Devil Know You’re Dead was recently released, which was more complicated and better acted. The film is beautifully shot with a solid, if familiar, Philip Glass score. There is one great rain-soaked scene when Wilkinson asks the lads to do the murder, but everything before and after struggles for originality. C+