Murderer’s row

With Cassandra’s Dream, Woody Allen returns to old themes and inevitable endings | Meghan Keane

Trading Manhattan's streets for those of London looked like the means to resurrect Woody Allen's career in 2005. After a long string of flops, Scarlett Johansson and a British setting for Match Point brought people to the theaters and promised to revitalize the filmmaker's lagging cinematic success. But the same casting and setting tricks ruined his follow-up Scoop, and his new film Cassandra's Dream retains not only a London setting but many of the predictable cinematic elements that led filmgoers to lose faith in him.

The film (rated PG-13 for thematic elements, some sexual material, and brief violence) follows two brothers—Ian (Ewan McGregor) and Terry (Colin Farrell)—who are reaching adulthood only to realize that they have not lived up to the promise of their dreams. The brothers are both going through financial problems when their rich uncle arrives in town, promising to end their woes in return for a small favor. And what's a little murder between brothers, anyway?