Product Details

• Actors: Ewan Macgregor, Colin Farrell
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Weinstein Company
• DVD Release Date: May 27, 2008
• Run Time: 109 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B0013D8LC2
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #72,105 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Cassandra's Dream" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell star as working class brothers whose dreams of better lives leads to desperation, greed and deadly betrayal. When gambling debt and an expensive courtship place them in a financial bind, a rich uncle (Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton) offers them an out in exchange for committing murder. Featuring gripping performances from an all-star cast; "this family tragedy puts us near the edge of our seats and pulls us right along on its downward spiral" (William Arnold, Seattle Post Intelligencer). Woody Allen returns in razor-sharp form with this "intense, intelligently-written and directed," (Jeffrey Lyons, Reel Talk) thriller that challenges how far a man should go in the name of family.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Spine-tingling Fable. . . November 8, 2008

By Danniray99

Format:DVD

Woody Allen's "Cassandra's Dream" is a tightly-wound fable about the morality and consequences of overweening ambition. Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell star as two working-class brothers who start out with outsized dreams but end up with a wealth of troubles wrought by obsessive social climbing. Ian (McGregor) passes himself off as a high-rolling property investor/developer, largely to impress his paramour, an alluring actress with a wondering eye (Hayley Atwell), while Terry (Farrell) sinks into the mire of compulsive gambling. In their desperation to finance their respective endeavors, the brothers turn to a wealthy uncle (Tom Wilkinson), who in turn extracts a deadly Faustian bargain from his nephews. Like 2006's "Match Point," "Cassandra's Dream" is yet another in a string of movies that are propelled by Woody Allen's lifelong fascination with class, morality (especially as it is defined or interpreted by the socially prominent) and the resulting friction. As with "Match Point," "Cassandra's Dream" has a spine-tingling, thriller-like urgency that quickens and intensifies as the story moves along. And Colin Farrell gives what may be one of his finer performances as the boozing, pill-popping and guilt-ridden prole unwittingly roped into an unspeakable vendetta.

26 of 33 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The love and game: the strings of life! May 24, 2008

By Hiram Gomez Pardo HALL OF FAME

Format:DVD

Since the times of "Mighty Aphrodite" the genial Woody Allen seems to have found a never ending vein of possibilities, blending the essential roots of the Greek tragedy with the classic patterns of the Noir Film.

As a matter of fact, if "Match Point" was one of his most supreme achievements until this date, "Cassandra ` s dream" is the perfect vehicle to carve in relief the existential anguish and the primary scream for two working class brothers who aspire to escape from his quotidian environment.

Every one of them wants to be recognized and admired, playing the game of a wealthy uncle, who is for their mother, the symbol of success, and the real support along his years of childhood and youth.

So, we have the greedy mother, the ruthless uncle who is a real wolf of the finances and regards the existence like a poker game. "Family is family and blood and blood" is his honour` s code, the fatal statement which will open the Pandora's box , leading the viewer to be witness of what the unsatisfying thirst of ambition and greed .

Once more, we are in front of one the most intelligently written and better conceived scripts of this tireless filmmaker, where the brain sees to impose itself into a world eminently emotional where nobody is totally innocent.

Both brothers appear like the sides of a coin, one represents the wounded conscious, while the other is the symbol of the pragmatism. A similar dramatic device who reminded me to Sean Penn `s "Indian runner".

Watch it, because it's absolutely gratifying from start to finish.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Good August 26, 2010

By Cosmoetica

Format:DVD

The DVD, by Genius LLC, has no features, save a few theatrical trailers of other films. The film's score, by Philip Glass, is hit and miss- as often emotionally leading an audience by the nose as genuinely enhancing the film, a characteristic far too many Glass scores embody. The camera work by longtime Allen collaborator Vilmos Zsigmond is quite good. But, the writing is what sets this film apart from so many other routine `thrillers.' In a sense, Allen's problem with such a film reminds me of a similar problem that German director Werner Herzog had with his recent Vietnam War film, Rescue Dawn. So many critics focused on how its similarity in themes to earlier masterpieces by the director showed the later film up as inferior to the earlier ones that they missed out that the newer films were damned good on their own. Yes, Rescue Dawn is not as good, deep, and poetic as Aguirre: The Wrath Of God, and similarly Cassandra's Dream is not the almost perfectly crafted masterpiece that was Crimes And Misdemeanors, but so what? Both are outstanding films that, shorn of the comparisons, and if directed by artists other than Herzog and Allen, would have drawn unadorned raves. Also, it's helpful to note that the critics who dissed this film are the same folk who dissed the same earlier great Allen films when they came out, but who now hold them up as exemplars, only exemplifying the utter lack of critical acumen this essay's first sentence denotes.

This film also provides a terrific showcase for Colin Farrell to show off his acting chops. Playing against type, he is the weaker of the two brothers, and he is excellent, showing that he is not mere female eye candy, and that turns in stinkers, like Oliver Stone's Alexander, are not the best he can do.... Ewan McGregor is good, as usual, as are the girlfriends, Atwell and Hawkins. Wilkinson is solid as the uncle, but the film might have given him a bit more to do. As is, his character is only a plot device to propel the brothers on their journeys, although the fumbling delivery Howard makes, and his digressions on why he won't consider a professional contract, make the scene all the more believable.

But, the film is so rich with great moments that detail character and plot, as mentioned earlier, that the screenplay could be used as an aid in screenwriting classes, for the film does trod over familiar Allen territory, but often with new twists and interesting asides which only deepen the resonance the film has. As example, after Ian meets Angela, he dumps his black girlfriend, Lucy, and a bit later, we see him callously telling his dad how special Angela is, and how much better and classier than any other girl he's dated she is. Lucy hears this, and the reaction she gives subtly lets us know how hurt she is and what an insensitive ass Ian is. There is also a scene where Ian questions Angela's ethic, by asking her if she'd sleep with a director to get a part, and she replies under what conditions she would. Ian, who has far weightier issues to deal with, seems stunned, but Angela puts him in his place by stating she gave the answers, but did not like the question. It's a small moment that shows that, while vain and egocentric, she does have a delineated ethical compass, and a penchant for giving as good as she gets- something many more one dimensional Allen sexpots lack. But, these are only two of a dozen or more such moments that enrich this film beyond mere `thriller' status.

And while Terry and Ian ruminate a bit on ethics they are not the typical Allen eggheads hemmed in by their intellectual prowess and emotional impotence. Their collective naďve-te is actually a bit refreshing, for when they repeat ideas hashed out in earlier Allen films (like the concept of `pushing a button' and someone is dead, borrowed from Crimes And Misdemeanors) or fixate on new ones (such as an addled Terry's claim that `It's always now!'- i.e.- the moment they committed murder) it is always in a different tone- one with more desperation, pathos, or stolidity- than before or expected. Also the fact that Allen, at several points, including the film's ending, seems to let the film settle into a groove that seems predictable, only to pull out the rug from under the viewers' expectations, lets the film maintain a tension and vigor it would otherwise lack. Viewers naturally desire clichés, in an emotional sense, for the comfort, yet when the film resists it the momentary disappointment blossoms into attraction to the storyline's turn from the expected, for manifest clichés invoke an intellectual resistance in a viewer, as well.

All in all, Cassandra's Dream is an outstanding and acidic portrait of family and crime, and one that was shamefully dismissed, when not neglected, by the idiotic elitists that populate the critical consensus that dominates film reviewing. Go against the grain, seek out this film on DVD, and let it work within you as well as on you. Read more ›

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Leopold and Loeb redux September 28, 2008

By Roland E. Zwick

Format:DVD

***1/2

Whenever he turns to drama, Woody Allen always seems to wind up
channeling either Ingmar Bergman ("Interiors," "September") or Fyodor
Dostoevsky ("Crimes and Misdemeanors," "Match Point"). "Cassandra's
Dream" finds him in one of his Dostoevsky moods (with traces of
Hitchcock thrown in for good measure), once again making the case that it is
both impossibly difficult and ridiculously easy for the common man to
engage in cold-blooded murder.

Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor star as two working-class brothers who
have fallen onto financial hard times (one is a compulsive gambler, the
other a frustrated cipher with dreams of rising above his station both
economically and romantically). Desperate for some immediate cash, they
reluctantly agree to knock off one of their wealthy uncle's business
rivals who has some secret knowledge that, if it ever got out, could
send the old man up the river for a very long time.

Set in London, "Cassandra's Dream" is not as sharp and cutting as some
of Allen's previous works in this genre, but thanks to strong
performances by Farrell, McGregor and Tom Wilkinson as the uncle, this
latest update of the Loepold-and-Loeb story manages to keep our
interest most of the way. The themes, which have been played out in
literature and movies for what seems like eons now, understandably feel
a trifle old-hat at this late stage in the game, but Allen's generally sharp dialogue,
canny insights into human nature, and smooth direction help to freshen
them up a bit.

It may not be Allen at his finest, but the ancillary rewards of script and acting make the
film well worth seeing.