CASSANDRA’S DREAM/BROTHERS’ NIGHTMARE

It is almost impossible to the Woody Allen element in this urban thriller because of the surfeit of acting talent and the irrepressibly British landscape.

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Yet it is also almost impossible to imagine this tale being told by anyone but Woody Allen. Or, at least, by anyone who was not from outside, given its weird twists.

Presumably there are always advantages and disadvantages to have foreigners shoot a film in a new country. Outsiders have been flocking to Hollywood for decades without any loss in quality.

Even Britain has not proved an obstacle to many directors, judging by the recent award-winning work by talents like Ang Lee and Shekar Kapur.

But Woody Allen is a very different species from these roving maestros, since they have long been rootless while he has so long been synonymous with a single place, New York.

So what has he served up for his third film in London, a city he loves almost as much as New York?

One of Cassandra’s charms is its simplicity: two brothers, Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell, very different (treated very differently but their struggling working classed parent’s, but united by a need for money.

Farrell needs it to feed his gambling habit, McGregor because he has expensive tastes beyond the income from his ambitious but vague dreams, especially when it comes to new woman Hayley Atwell (above).

Thank goodness for fabled Uncle Tom Wilkinson (with the boys, main photo) who happens to have just breezed in from some distant corner of his vast and mysterious business empire.

Wilkinson has a history of bailing out the boys and with the stroke of a pen they are off and sailing, literally, on their newly purchased boat, called Cassandra’s Dream.

Except the Wilkinson has a small favour to ask in return: he needs the lads to kill a business associated who is threatening to undermine all his wealth and, in turn, any future gifts to the boys.

And this is where the plots definitely takes a Woody Allen twist. It is difficult to know which of his characters is the most stupid: Wilkinson for asking the boys to carry out a murder or the boys for even contemplating it.

Sufficient to say, nothing goes according to plan from that moment on and instead of any dream conclusion there is an odd mixture of blood letting and laughs.

Not quite Woody’s usual fun story, yeet not quite all thrills either.

Cassandrandra’s Cream opens nationwide on May 23, 2008

Posted May 12, 2008