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Reviews Counted:113
Fresh:52
Rotten:61
Average Rating:5.7/10
Consensus: Colin Farrell and Tom Wilkinson act up a storm in Cassandra's Dream, but Woody Allen's heavy-handed symbolism and foreshadowing drains the plot of all tension.
Theatrical Release:Jan 18, 2008 Limited
Box Office: $871,646
Synopsis: Woody Allen wrote and directed this London-set feature, a modern noir with black comic trimmings. Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor play working class brothers who dream of better things than their... [More]
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell, Tom Wilkinson, Sally Hawkins
Director: Woody Allen
Funny thing about tragedy: It loses its heft when it has to keep reminding us how tragic it is. It's hard to cozy up to a script that feels the need to toss in casual references to fate and Aristotle. Yo, we get it already. They're doomed.
Top CriticIf all [Woody Allen] is going to do is grind out weak, Brit-accented genre pieces that pay homage to 1940s and '50s melodramas, he shouldn't waste the frequent-flier miles.
Allen has often been intrigued by the convolutions an ordinary person undergoes when faced with becoming a murderer.
Allen's storytelling is crisper here than it has been all decade, even if he's making shadow puppets out of the forewarnings.
Top CriticAllen's latest, his 42nd effort as a director, is the work of an artist devoid of ideas and energy. Perfunctorily staged and lazily written, it comes to life in only the briefest of spurts, usually when the ever-reliable Tom Wilkinson is on-screen.
Cassandra's Dream, Woody Allen's latest excursion to the dark side of human nature, is good enough that you may wonder why he doesn't just stop making comedies once and for all.
Did Woody Allen kill somebody once? Could somebody check and make sure Tony Roberts is OK?
Allen doesn't breeze through this biblical tale of wicked brothers without exploring all possibilities of guilt, and while it can make the whisky-soaked picture feel three days long, it does nothing to dilute the essential dread that Allen writes so well.
It's nowhere near as good as Match Point, even if it does feel like a sequel to that brilliant film, but it's also not nearly as bad as the more-recent Scoop or a dozen other Allen films.
The cast makes the most of Allen's predetermined screenplay.
The identical premise is used in Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, which is like a master class in how Allen goes wrong.
Top CriticThere's not a believable character, nor line of convincing dialogue to be found.
The good news about Woody Allen's "Cassandra's Dream" is that it is nowhere near as bad as his recent string of duds. The bad news is that it is nowhere near as good as his best work.
If Cassandra's Dream doesn't have the heft of Match Point, mostly due to an ending that tries too hard, I'd argue that it's a much more human film.
Trying to balance the demands of his well-meaning motives with the requirements of the genre leaves Allen unsettled and ineffective, two words that encompass the creative drought evident in Cassandra's Dream.
A surprisingly solid, expertly constructed crime drama.
Writer/director Woody Allen calls on everyone to be a bit too reserved, but Wilkinson and Farrell find ways around it
In this unrelenting and uncompromising film, Allen directs with the ease of a master
Woody is strip mining his old material - Cassandra's Dream is a pallid retread of Match Point on a par with Hitchcock's lesser exercises.
This family tragedy puts us somewhere near the edge of our seats and pulls us right along its downward spiral.
November 07, 2008:
UK Critics Consensus: Was W. Wicked? Is Pride & Glory Proud and Glorious?
This week in the UK cinemas we have Oliver Stones latest presidential dissection, the George W. Bush biopic W. with Josh Brolin in the title role. Also out is Pride & Glory, a... More...
January 17, 2008:
Critics' Consensus: Cloverfield is Monstrously Fun, 27 Dresses Fails to Impress, Mad Money Not Worth Much
This week at the movies, we've got monster mayhem (Cloverfield, starring Michael Stahl-David), marital mishaps (27 Dresses, starring Katherine Heigl), and heist hilarity (Mad... More...
November 23, 2007:
Trailer & Poster review 
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November 06, 2007:
Preview, posters, and images.
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