Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream: Slow and Ponderous to Non-Allen Fans

Cassandra's Dream stars Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor as Terry and Ian Blaine, in a film directed by Woody Allen. Terry and Ian are two brothers from South London, scrambling to make a living in their low-paying, dead-end jobs. Terry works in a garage and has delusions of grandeur, which he feeds with his sporadic gambling winnings. Ian works in the family restaurant, dreaming of owning hotels in California.

Throughout their lives, they've looked up to their uncle Howard (played by Tom Wilkinson), who happens to be a very wealthy businessman. Howard has always helped his family financially whenever they needed it. When Howard arrives in town to celebrate his sister's birthday, the boys turn to him for help. Terry has chalked up a very sizable gambling debt and Ian needs capital to get his hotel dream off the ground. Luckily for the needy brothers, Howard is willing to help them with their problems and then some, if only the boys would do a favor for him first.

It seems that uncle Howard is facing a lengthy prison sentence and the only way out is to kill a business associate that is planning to testify against him. Howard offers to bankroll Terry and Ian if they perform this deed. The two young men aren't bad men, just broke and they find themselves struggling over this offer. Uncle Howard has always taken care of them and has never asked anything in return. The time has come to repay their debt and the cost may be more than they can handle.

The brothers eventually decide to complete their end of the deal and manage to kill the business associate, but the strain soon becomes more than they can bear. The plot now follows the two men as they try to find their own ways to come to grips with the horrible act they committed. Terry is so stricken that he starts having panic attacks and tells Ian that he wants to confess to the police. Ian wants nothing to do with this and decides that the only way to stop Terry from spilling his guts is to kill him.

The brothers take a boat trip on Cassandra's Dream, a boat Terry bought with his gambling winnings. It's during this trip that Ian planned on killing his brother but he finds himself unable to do it. The brothers fight on the boat and Ian is accidentally killed. Terry, now burdened with the deaths of two men, including his own brother flings himself into the ocean and drowns.

This movie suffers from some problems. An Irishman and a Scot are cast as South Londoners so their accents don't ring true and sometimes wander about. The script itself tends to bog down and the audience will find themselves wondering just what Woody Allen wants them to feel. Most of the cast, including Farrell and McGregor are more than a match for the script and usually manage to keep our attention. The problem is that while Allen has always been very good at capturing the essence of people, he hasn't been that good at capturing the attention of the average movie-goer.

Like most of Woody Allen's other films, this one doesn't fit neatly into any specific category. If it's a comedy, it's a very, very dark one. If it's a drama, it has some pretty amusing moments in it. If you are a fan of Allen's films, you'll probably enjoy this one. Others will probably find this film slow and ponderous.

Cassandra's Dream had been previously released in Europe during the fall of 2007, but has only recently made it to American shores. It's rated PG-13 for some violence and sexual material.