Here’s a word of advice for Mr. Woody Allen: “It’s time to head back to Manhattan, Wood Man.”
“Cassandra’s Dream” officially proves that the well in London has run dry for the prolific New York icon, who has been churning out something near to a film per year for three decades. His latest offering completes his English trilogy of mixed genre homicide thrillers. They have gradually declined in value from the gripping character study of ambition run amock “Match Point” (2005) to the passable serial killer comedy “Scoop” (2006) to today’s lifeless and pointless family drama of murder less foul.
Indeed, the director-writer likes to mass-produce his art — just to keep himself busy it seems, judging by the sometimes atrocious yet still occasionally marvelous output of the latter half of his career as an auteur. So it’s probably inevitable that second-rate mediocrity such as “Cassandra’s Dream” would also pop up somewhere on the Woody Allen Film Quality Continuum.
A potentially compelling, mostly British ensemble of players new to the Woody oeuvre seems helpless trying to infuse some energy into a dashed-off script. It’s about two Cockney working class brothers who are being sucked into felonious behavior by their corrupt rich uncle.
The offbeat Scottish leading man Ewan McGregor and former Irish “it” boy Colin Farrell do fine but are limited by the material as the ambitious Ian Blaine and gambling addicted Terry Blaine, respectively. The presence of potent character actor Tom Wilkinson (“Michael Clayton”) has been underused, since he is cast here as their plot device. He still gets a chance to register an effective creepiness as the uncle who sets the brothers off on a course of moral dilemma and greed-induced personal destruction.
The narrative moves in fits and starts through often-redundant scenes of characters agonizing that don’t propel the action forward. A few sequences spark to life by good acting and Allen’s directorial prowess — as when Ian and Terry make a first very tense attempt to knock off their uncle’s nemesis for him or when you can palpably feel Ian’s desire for an elusive hot girl (Hayley Atwell) begin to rise.
But Allen’s writing is the weak link of this flat and affected affair. “Cassandra’s Dream” may not be Woody’s nightmare. But it does signal a need for a change in creative inspiration for the tireless genius who brought us some of the most transcendent films of the 1970s and ’80s.
‘Cassandra’s Dream’
**
» Starring: Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell, Tom Wilkinson
» Director: Woody Allen
» Rated PG-13
» Running time: 108 minutes
