Cassandra's Dream

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Writer-director Woody Allen's third London-based film in a row, following the excellent drama "Match Point" and the so-so whimsical comedy-mystery "Scoop," is closer to the first in tone, but far less persuasive.

"Cassandra's Dream" (Weinstein) proves a fairly interesting but ultimately unconvincing psychological drama about two financially needy brothers -- restaurant manager Ian (Ewan McGregor) and inveterate gambler and sports car mechanic Terry (Colin Farrell) -- who are asked by their rich but shady Uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson), visiting from Los Angeles, to kill a whistle-blowing business associate for pay.

Both brothers need the money -- Ian to impress Angela (Hayley Atwell), the up-and-coming actress he's just met who thinks he's an affluent hotelier, and Terry to pay off a huge gambling debt to loan sharks. Despite their shortcomings, we sense they're basically decent guys to whom the idea of murder is, at least at first, abhorrent.

The two leads are excellent. Despite their lack of physical resemblance, they are believable as brothers and play off each other very well indeed. Claire Higgins and John Benfield are good as their working-class parents, with whom Ian still lives. Atwell and Sally Hawkins as Terry's live-in girlfriend Kate capably round out the principals.

But Allen's Hitchcockian script not only lacks the master's genius but fails to avoid a sense of contrivance. So, too, his trademark New York cadences sound slightly off-kilter in the mouths of his all-British cast. And his writing, frankly, seems lazy at times. When Howard asks the men to bump off his associate, his persuasive arguments are so weakly written -- basically, "Oh, come on, guys, you owe me" -- it's a wonder Wilkinson can utter them with a straight face.

In the Hitchcock style, the film admirably avoids on-screen brutality, and the most violent episode occurs -- as in Hitchcock's "Frenzy" -- with a camera panning discreetly away.

The Greek tragedy aura suggested by the film's title (also the name of the yacht the brothers buy at the film's start, financed by Terry's winnings in a dog race) -- and the sense of dread that hangs over these characters -- is far less potent than in that other current brothers-driven-to-crime film, the superior "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead."

As for Allen's nihilistic worldview, the sentiment that life is merely random chance, as espoused here by Ian, is beginning to grow tiresome, and in any case felt more organic in "Match Point." Terry counterbalances that outlook by revealing a conscience ("we always have choices"), however tortured, and a moral sense about breaking "God's law."

Composer Philip Glass' score adds the appropriate sinister ambience, and sets this apart from a prototypical Allen film, though with murder dominating his last three films perhaps the paradigm has shifted.

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The film contains an off-screen murder, brief violence, much conversational profanity, drug references, some brief sexual banter and nonmarital relationships. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 -- parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops