bela If you've never seen any of Woody Allen's movies, make sure you don't choose this turkey as your introduction to his otherwise wonderful oeuvre. The plot is a cliché taken straight out of a daytime soapie and despite a seemingly excellent leading cast, the acting is beyond wooden. Colin Farrell is reported as saying this movie took him more takes than Miami Vice. Pity they didn't take a lot more or better still, take none at all and start over. Abysmal.

andriyyablonsky There is a story about two brothers. The first one is full of confidence and ambitions, the second one is a weak gambler. Both of them have some difficulties with money and the solution comes just in time. The question of moral was played really interesting in this movie. An idea of two brothers on the different sides of the attitude towards murder is just great. I am always really involved in the subject like that, enjoy watching argues on such an issue. That is why I think that this movie is certainly intellectual and interesting. However, the end is, as usually, boring and predictable. I wish I could change it to the Match Point end. It will be far more interesting - just dispose of this *Crime and Punishment* capstone of modern cinema.Woody should cross the line, show us more unpunished blood. That is what I would certainly want to watch.

Gyran Ten years after it was made, I tracked this film down on Amazon. It never got much of a release in the UK and, as far as I know, it has never been shown on television. I'm not surprised. It is even worse than Woody Allen's other two British ventures: Match Point and Scoop. Everything I said about those two films applies in spades to Cassandra's dream: implausible plot, terrible dialogue and wooden acting. It employs a large number of fine British actors. I can only imagine how thrilled they were at being invited to appear in a film by the great Woody Allen and how shattered were their illusions after they had read the script. It was like a 1950's British second feature. Surprisingly, it lasts for 148 interminable minutes. Woody usually confines himself to a snappy 90 minutes. The kindest thing I can say about this film was that I never would have recognised that it was a Woody Allen film. There are a large number of 1 star reviews for this film on IMDb, most of them saying more or less what I have written here so there is not really anything else that I can usefully add.

blanche-2 Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell star in "Cassandra's Dream," also starring Tom Wilkinson and Hayley Atwell.Set in London, McGregor and Farrell play brothers Ian and Terry. Terry is a compulsive gambler who works in a car shop (Farrell), and Ian (McGregor) is helping his father out at the family restaurant but wants to do big things in the investment world.Terry is the wild one, a hard drinker who racks up 90,000 pounds of debt and has to go to a loan shark. Ian, meanwhile, uses the fancy cars where his brother works and talks big to impress a young actress (Atwell), with whom he falls madly in love.Their mother (Claire Higgins) brags constantly about her brother Howard (Wilkinson), the wealthy L.A. plastic surgeon, and Uncle Howard visits, giving the boys a chance to hit him up for money -- Terry for his gambling debts and Ian so he can buy into some L.A. hotels. That's fine with Uncle Howard, but he wants something in return. It seems he and his clinics are under investigation, and one of his associates, Martin Burns (Phil Davis) is ready to testify against him. What he wants in exchange for helping out is that his nephews kill Martin Burns.The brothers balk, and Terry absolutely refuses, but gradually both he and Ian come around and agree to do it.This is Woody Allen, so there is no Hayes code or old Hollywood ending to these types of films when he does them. As in "Match Point," Allen plays on the themes of fate, God, and here, the misery of life. What is it he said in one film, life is full of horror and tragedy, and it's over too quickly, and then he compared it with women in the Poconos complaining about the horrible food, and one says, yes, and in such small portions.In "Crimes and Misdemeanors," Allen explored the theme of guilt, and the Martin Landau character comes to a conclusion about it. Here, he explores another side of guilt while holding fast to the feelings expressed by Landau in Crimes, and not expressed -- but certainly felt -- by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers in "Match Point." And he plays on the irony of fate in a way done in neither of the above-mentioned films. He's done Ingmar Bergman, now he does Dostoyevsky. I have no idea how Allen can be so incredibly prolific, but I'm so glad that he is, and that sometimes he's willing to be so deadly serious. Though "Cassandra's Dream" doesn't have the operatic highs of "Match Point," it's still a strong film, driven by an inexhaustible mind.