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.

Two brothers with serious financial problems get a chance to wipe the slate clean and fulfil their dreams when their wealthy uncle asks them to do him a favour.Woody Allen's light hearted take on the atrocious act of murder. Excellent Ewan McGregor's Ian gets slightly out shone by Colin Farrell's gambling alcoholic Terry here as the brothers' relationship is tested. Their girlfriends played by Hayley Atwell and Sally Hawkins are notable and the supporting cast are strong including John Benfield, Philip Davis and Tom Wilkinson to name a few.As the Greek-like tragedy morality play gradually builds the characters and meanders through Allen's basic effective plot. It's an enjoyable slow paced affair that hooks you from the first scene. Its naturalistic setting also gives it an unnerving off beat feeling echoing the likes of The Good Thief (2002) or The Linguini Incident (1991). It also has a vibe reminiscent of countless UK unconventional talky drama films of the 1980s. Yet, with no lead American actors London set Cassandra's Dream doesn't feel like a film synonymous with Allen. It's no Talented Mr Ripley (1999) but it's strength is the simplistic plot that comes full circle on an everyday back drop, its certainly worth viewing especially for McGregor's and Farrell's even-tempered performances.

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.

An oddity in the Woody Allen canon in many ways; while not a stinker, this brotherly drama listed as a thriller hardly thrills, and the suspense, while it holds the viewer to the screen is seldom intense; one watches, I think, mainly because the film is cast with some of the more interesting actors working today--Tom Wilkinson, Colin Farrell, and Ewan McGregor; the set-up is actually fairly ordinary for crime films, and one waits for director Allen to develop intensity in the situations; during the most heinous murder, for instance, little of its horror is communicated visually, leaving the viewer to wonder why one of the killers is suddenly having nightmares. Watching the film is not exactly time wasted, but I suspect you wont be rushing online to enthusiastically recommend it to a friend