5/5 Loved It!
  by Lulu (Hamilton, OH USA)
A great movie! Joins Match Point and Crimes and Misdemeanors as one of my favorite Woody Allen movies that don't have him in it. (Ones in which he stars are in a whole other category!) Like the other two, this one does a fantastic job of portraying characters who are facing moral dilemmas, a favorite theme of WA. Great casting, great sets, and great direction. Highly recommend this one.

4/5 Probably should get a 5 star rating.
  by M. Strong (maryland)
The acting was great, the direction was great & the story was excellent. But there just wasn't enough shallow senseless violence & action.

2/5 rent it only
  by J. Shin (Hawaii)
Lot of people seem to argue for or against this movie based on it being another Woody Allen movie. If you were to show this movie to a person without telling who the director is, I would venture that almost no one will guess the director. There's nothing about this movie to distinguish it. Ewan and Colin does ok work (Colin is definitely better) but Tom Wilkinson is totally wasted. Ewan will never be a great actor (name one outstanding performance) and Colin Farrell is way better in "In Bruges" besides that being a much better movie. For supposedly a family tragedy film, the movie lacks any real tension and feels strained in it's attempt to convey any melodrama. You may be mildly amused but don't waste your time and money buying it.

3/5 Woody Fans: Better than Scoop; Not Quite Match Point
  by G. YEO (Singapore)
It's London...there's murder in the air and it's Woody Allen!

Cassandra's Dream features a nice pairing of Ewan Macgregor and Colin Farrell (Who doesn't want to act with Woody?) but the Master himself is average on this outing. His London trilogy which started out brilliantly with Match Point and degenerated with Scoop ends here with Cassandra's Dream, which averages out the two.

The movie unfolds like a play, much like Scoop, and from the start, you feel that both our leads feel like (gasp) actors. The self conscious nuances that Woody brings to his characters sometimes creates a sharp contrast from the flat, ordinary style of filming. There's nothing fancy in terms of Woody's camerawork (often times, it felt like watching an older BBC tv drama) and he relies completely on the actors and the script to drive the story.

The story of two brothers and confidantes and their inevitable moral dilemma of how to pursue a better destiny echoes Match Point, so much so that you wonder why Woody is revisiting the same riff. Cassandra's Dream could well play on stage - I imagine somehow that Woody was inspired by visiting the theatre in the West End when he conceived this.

Collin Farrell provides the more interesting and tortured character, but somehow the usual ironies and humour of Allen's wit are missing in Cassandra's Dream and in the end we get a not quite thriller / drama, devoid of the usual quirks we've come to love of this director.

Certainly watchable but those interested in this vein of Woody may want to check out Crimes and Misdemeanours or even Manhatten Murder Mystery. Or simply fast forward to Vicky Christina Barcelona.



1/5 Sorry Woody, Sidney Lumet Did It Better
  by Richard Hine (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001UG3BJK)
What happens when two veteran directors make two similarly themed movies, each focusing on two brothers planning the perfect crime? Predictably, in each case, it all goes horribly wrong. However, only in Sidney Lumet's "Before the Devil Knows Your Dead," is that a good thing. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke (along with Albert Finney and Marisa Tomei) make Lumet's botched robbery caper consistently intriguing and suspenseful. In the case of Woody Allen's "Cassandra's Dream," the brothers-in-crime story is botched in every way imaginable -- with a disastrous script and wooden performances by Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell. The plots and the packaging are similar. But one you will remember. The other you'll want to forget.