Cassandra's Dream | Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell | Sterling performances from Ewan McGregor and...

Cassandra's Dream | Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell | Choices

DVDs:

Cassandra's Dream

	Cassandra's Dream Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell Weinstein Company, 2008 average customer review:based on 26 reviews view larger image
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Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell star as working class brothers whose dreams of better lives leads to desperation greed and deadly betrayal. When gambling debt and an expensive courtship place them in a financial bind a rich uncle (Tom Wilkinson Michael Clayton) offers them an out in exchange for committing murder. Featuring gripping performances from an all-star cast; "this family tragedy puts us near the edge of our seats and pulls us right along on its downward spiral" (William Arnold Seattle Post Intelligencer). Woody Allen returns in razor-sharp form with this "intense intelligently-written and directed" (Jeffrey Lyons Reel Talk) thriller that challenges how far a man should go in the name of family.System Requirements:Running Time: 109 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA Rating: PG-13 UPC: 796019810647 Manufacturer No: 81064

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Sterling performances from Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell!

A few years ago, you may remember, Colin Farrell was touted as a hot young up-and-comer...a great actor with great looks. Someone who would be a movie star at any moment. Farrell then proceeded to "star" in a number of movies that the public was not interested in, such as THE NEW WORLD, ALEXANDER and THE RECRUIT. The soul-less MIAMI VICE was the bottom. It made some money, but Farrell was so uninteresting in it (and seemed so uninterested)...his moment of glory was done.

A few years ago, you may remember Ewan McGregor was a hot young up-and-coming star, after turning on critics with TRAINSPOTTING and striking a chord with Americans in a one-episode appearance on the smash hit TV show "ER." He was about to be a star. Well, he too starred in some movies no one wanted to see, such as DOWN WITH LOVE and STAY (although his natural charm and charisma never let him look bored.) He was arguably the best thing in the new STAR WARS movies, but he got lost in all the hand-wringing over how bad they were. His star faded.

For many years, in good movies and bad, Woody Allen has written great roles for women, including Oscar winning and nominated parts great and small. Have Diane Keaton, Mia Farrow, Judy Davis, Dianne Wiest, etc. ever been better than when working with Woody? But his star faded too. Each year, he churned out another clunker (MELINDA AND MELINDA, ANYTHING ELSE?). He still had big roles for women, but no one cared that Tea Leoni gave a tart performance in HOLLYWOOD ENDING.

A couple of years ago, Allen turned his attention to London, and suddenly there appeared MATCH POINT, his best movie in years. Emily Mortimer and Scarlett Johanssen gave highly praised performances...but I couldn't help noticing that the best performance came from Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. The next year, in London again, came the minor comedy SCOOP, which at least managed to be more funny than some of his more recent work. Johanssen again was okay, but ironically it was Allen's most amusing acting in awhile. And then came CASSANDRA'S DREAM.

There are women in this film, and they are all quite okay. But this is an ACTOR'S film...and suddenly we are reminded that Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor are actually capable of truly moving performances, complex, flesh-out, lived-in and believable. They are not afraid to play genuinely flawed people. Allen has given them lots of rich dialogue to work with, and they RIP into it with gusto.

They play brothers who are always a bit down on their luck. McGregor works in his father's restaurant, but dreams of "making it big" with some sort of get rich quick scheme or another. He clearly has no head for business, but he wants to be rich, move to California and show off. He also wants to impress a beautiful actress he's in love with who he's made THINK he's all these things. Farrell is a mechanic who spends most of his time winning at gambling and even more of it losing. Both brothers are clearly addicted to the idea of fast, easy money...even if they recognize that these desires are flawed.

Both of them find themselves needing more money than they can possibly lay their hands on. And into their lives comes their very rich uncle (Tom Wilkinson...oozing easy menace in a way that Sidney Pollack would have done in an American film.) He wants to help them...but in return they must do something for him that is pretty horrible to contemplate.

Will they compromise their morals? If they do, will they be able to live with what they've done? Will money bring them happiness?

Allen has grappled with these themes before, and there's not really any new moral territory being explored. But the London setting has finally freed Allen's writing from sounding just like a film by...Woody Allen. McGregor and Farrell bring their own cadence to the dialogue, and they have both dug deep into their portrayals...so they sound like real people and not just Allen concoctions.

The movie builds some real tension. As the brothers face what they are considering doing, we truly feel some of the tension they do. We are sometimes appalled by them, but we always root for them. Neither of these actors would have expected to be renewed as movie stars with this film...but they saw a chance to renew their stature as actors. And both men succeed very well indeed. (And Farrell went on next to the superior, totaling gripping IN BRUGES...one of my favorite movies of 2008.)
The story comes to a rushed and disappointing conclusion...clearly grabbing to come off as Greek tragedy but most seeming lazy...as though Allen just didn't know how to wrap it all up. No one else in the film matches Farrell and McGregor for intensity of acting or clarity of characterization. Thus, this is a flawed film...but it's always interesting and it is more than redeemed by two outstanding performances.

It's a Woody Allen film (like MATCH POINT) that I would actually recommend to thoughtful adults who generally don't like Woody Allen. THAT is a rarity.

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Choices

"Cassandra's Dreams" is an interesting Woody Allen film. It has a lot of the elements of "Match Point" but it does not quite rise to that level. The essential reason for that is that the audience is asked to buy into two successive choices that our lead character has to make. The writer/director has certainly done a good job of making his case for those two choices. However, many might buy into the first one but the second one may have been a choice too far. As a result it will, for many, end up as a film that does not fully relate to the viewer.

The acting is very good, the directing is excellent and the movie approaches the level of a thriller. After the movie was over, I was left quite impressed with the irony of the ending. As I thought about it the next day, I realized the depth of the irony that I hadn't comprehended the night before. This might be just the movie for a person who has fretted long and hard over a bad choice they made in their past. Perhaps things could have turned out worse? "Cassandra's Dream" really is an excellent film except for the reason I stated. It may not be "Match Point" but it's certainly better than "Scoop".

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An "Interesting" Woody Allen

Shadow Watcher
Nobody Drowns in Mineral Lake

I love the films written and directed by Woody Allen. Comedy or drama, even when he's not on top of his game, his pictures are, at the very least, "interesting".

Admittedly, CASSANDRA'S DREAM (2007) is not one of his best, primarily because it's a bit too long and the story's focus wanders off into unnecessary tangents. On the other hand, the performances are uniformly gripping and Allen's simplicity in staging his scenes is always refreshing.

CASSANDRA'S DREAM, filmed in England, is a drama about murder that re-visits moralistic issues Allen first dealt with in one of his best pictures, CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS (1989), except that in this new film, the outcome is different.

Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor are cast as working-class brothers, each with big dreams and even bigger money problems. Gambler Colin owes a bundle to vicious loan sharks and Ewan, in love with an overly ambitious actress, wants to buy into a California hotel chain with money he doesn't have.

Their only hope is their rich uncle, Tom Wilkinson, who agrees to help them if they do him a favor. He wants them to murder a colleague whose testimony can put him into prison for shady business dealings.

Wilkinson rationalizes that they are "family" and if he can't count on family to help him out of a tight spot, then he can't count on anything.

I'm not sure if it was Allen's intent or not, but the scene in which Wilkinson asks his nephews to commit murder, and their unbelieving reactions to his proposition, almost plays like "black comedy" in this otherwise, very serious and generally intelligently-written film.

After the initial shock wears off, Colin and Ewan ponder their options and, at least in McGregor's case, develop a rationalization that killing this person would be no different that killing your enemy in a war.

Now, all they have to deal with is their consciences.

© Michael B. Druxman, author of ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (available December 2008)

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Still Looking For Woody

Okay, so Woody goes overseas (to London this time), gets two nice young working class brothers to commit to helping out dear old rich Uncle (he is family, after all) get rid of (for good, get it) a pesky member of his organization. The trials and tribulations (to speak nothing of the dialogue) are a little bit much as the two members of the gang who couldn't shoot straight are too far from Jersey to make this work, especially when one brother gets a little to remorseful for uncle and brother . What this film reminds me most of in a sense is that Woody is conflicted about how Martin Landau got away with murder in Crimes and Misdemeanors and he wants to right the situation here. Given the material here the two brothers do okay but this is certainly not in the same league as C&M, which is arguably one of Woody's best works.

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Leopold and Loeb redux

***1/2

Whenever he turns to drama, Woody Allen always seems to wind up
channeling either Ingmar Bergman ("Interiors," "September") or Fyodor
Dostoevsky ("Crimes and Misdemeanors," "Match Point"). "Cassandra's
Dream" finds him in one of his Dostoevsky moods (with traces of
Hitchcock thrown in for good measure), once again making the case that it is
both impossibly difficult and ridiculously easy for the common man to
engage in cold-blooded murder.

Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor star as two working-class brothers who
have fallen onto financial hard times (one is a compulsive gambler, the
other a frustrated cipher with dreams of rising above his station both
economically and romantically). Desperate for some immediate cash, they
reluctantly agree to knock off one of their wealthy uncle's business
rivals who has some secret knowledge that, if it ever got out, could
send the old man up the river for a very long time.

Set in London, "Cassandra's Dream" is not as sharp and cutting as some
of Allen's previous works in this genre, but thanks to strong
performances by Farrell, McGregor and Tom Wilkinson as the uncle, this
latest update of the Loepold-and-Loeb story manages to keep our
interest most of the way. The themes, which have been played out in
literature and movies for what seems like eons now, understandably feel
a trifle old-hat at this late stage in the game, but Allen's generally sharp dialogue,
canny insights into human nature, and smooth direction help to freshen
them up a bit.

It may not be Allen at his finest, but the ancillary rewards of script and acting make the
film well worth seeing.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

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