That old adage about 'suspending disbelief' springs to mind when faced with Woody Allen's latest project. Only you'd have to do a lot more than suspend disbelief upon watching this movie - you'd have to hang, draw and quarter it. If you count his other recent offerings Matchpoint and Scoop, Cassandra's Dream may well prove to be the third turkey in the trilogy.
The film centres on two London brothers who become hitmen to solve their financial woes - so far, so plausible. Only the version of London served up here is like Mary Poppins meets EastEnders and the brothers Ian and Terry (played respectively by Scotsman Ewan McGregor and Irishman Colin Farrell) struggle with incongruous Cockney accents that make Dick van Dyke sound like Phil Mitchell.
Poor accents aside, it's embarrassing to see these two actors - purportedly worth their weight in Hollywood box office gold - foundering in a movie whose script might well have been written by a 15 year old foreign media student. The characters are paper-thin, scenes stilted and script consistently ridiculous (when Ian and Terry agree to bump off their rich uncle's business associate, Terry insists on constructing two hand-made wooden guns to do the deed inconspicuously). Sound comedic? If only.
Once the murder is done, Ian exploits his new solvency and girlfriend (played with cardboard cut-out credibility by Hayley Atwell) without so much as a second thought while Terry wrestles with his conscience, eventually threatening to go to the police. Needless to say, tragedy is just around the corner.
Well, not tragedy exactly - just more disbelief. In fact the only believable (and redeemable) part of the film are a handful of the supporting actors, such as Terry's girlfriend Kate (Sally Hawkins) who do a valiant job given their apalling dialogue.
The biggest suspension of disbelief though is not that two working-class London brothers go yachting in the country every weekend (on a boat the film takes its name from) but that such a great writer-director has produced such a nonsense film - again. For this story at least, Woody has certainly lost the plot.
Kate Coffey
