Cassandra’s Dream

January 18, 2008

Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 108 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

This is Woody Allen’s third dark foray, along with CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS and MATCHPOINT, into what can drive someone to murder, and if they can get away with it.
Cassandra's Dream Allen makes a movie a year, and most of them are New York City comedies of one sort or another, but this is his third movie in a row set in London.

Ian (Ewan McGregor) and Terry (Colin Ferrell) are brothers, two working-class Londoners. They go in together to buy an old boat and restore it, naming it CASSANDRA’S DREAM.

Terry is an auto mechanic with a gambling problem who gets into debt with loan sharks. Ian works in the family restaurant, but has dreams of business deals involving hotels in California. He’s smitten with a beautiful actress, and feels he’s not going to be able to continue to win her affections without suitable financial backup.

With them both needing money, enter their rich uncle who has a proposition. There’s a certain business associate of his who’s causing big problems for the uncle (Tom Wilkonson) which might lead him to jail, and he’d very much like to see the man dead.

Neither brother is a career criminal, but with the one’s gambling problems and the other’s thirst for the good life, they slowly begin to convince themselves that murder is an option.

Then they try to meticulously plan out the murder (With guns harder to get in England, serious consideration is given to strangling, knifing, or bludgeoning). But of course, things don’t go quite as planned.

This is a tense thriller with a a haunting soundtrack by Phillip Glass.

Posted by Mack Guffin | Filed Under 3 Stars, Colin Farrell, Ewan McGregor, Hayley Atwell, Theatrical, Tom Wilkinson