Cassandra's Dream

I watched Woody Allen's grimly serious crime drama, Cassandra's Dream. Filmed in England with an all British cast. Made in 2007, but I never heard of it.

It reminded me a little of Sydney Lumet's final film, Before the Devil Knows Your Dead, although this one had a much simpler plot, and there were elements of Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Filmed Woody Allen style, in medium shot. He saves time and money doing whole scenes in one take. Doesn't have to shoot coverage. One of the actors said he did fewer retakes for the entire movie than he had for a single scene in Miami Vice.

Starring Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell as a couple of brothers. One has compulsively gambled away a large sum he borrowed from a loan shark, the other wants to invest in a business. Their rich Uncle Howard will help them----but they have to kill a business associate of his who's scheduled to testify against him and send him to prison for a terribly long time.

Will they do it? Can they commit such a horrible crime?

I wouldn't. But I wouldn't have borrowed all that money from a loan shark either, or gambled it away like that.

I thought the plot was too simple. Too few complications. But it wasn't bad.

Made for a modest $15 million. Vilmos Zsigmond was the cinematographer. He had worked with low budget filmmaker Ray Dennis Steckler on his first feature, Wild Guitar, with Arch Hall, Jr.