Until 2005’s dark and engrossing Match Point, one might have been forgiven for thinking Woody Allen’s creative career was at an end. But the taut morality play seemed to herald a new and lauded direction in Allen’s career.

Some accused the London-based drama of being a philosophical carbon copy of Allen’s earlier work, Crimes and Misdemeanors, in which a man who murders the woman with whom he’s having an affair must wrestle with his actions in the context of a universe ruled over by an all-seeing and adjudicating God. My recommendation for those critics is to stay as far away as possible from Allen’s new film. Cassandra’s Dream is a very good movie, but Allen is unquestionably copying himself once again.

Remaining in his self-imposed European exile, Allen once again sets his story in London. And, like Match Point, Allen’s story is about blue-collar ambition to climb the social ladder, no matter the cost. Brothers Ian (Ewan McGregor) and Terry (Colin Farrell) couldn’t be more different. Ian, who works in the family’s restaurant, dresses in clothes he cannot afford and entertains grand money-making schemes to catapult him from his working class roots into a life of luxury. He has met a beautiful actress, Angela (Hayley Atwell), while trolling around in a luxury sports car from Terry’s mechanics shop and invents a lavish lifestyle to impress her. Terry, who seems to revel in his working class life, is a chronic drinker and gambler. He is in debt over his head, with collection due either the easy or the hard way. The two see a solution to their problems when their wealthy Uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson) comes to them with a request — murder a troublesome colleague for him and he will give them all the money they need.

For their parts, Ian and Terry do not instantly agree. These are likable men whose flaws have led them astray into sinister territory, but they certainly know the difference between right and wrong. However, after some consideration, Ian convinces the averse Terry that Howard’s plan is their only way out, setting in motion a series of unforeseen events and unthinkable consequences. Ian is not as clever as he thinks he is and Terry has not the strength to quash his howling conscience.

Cassandra’s Dream is brooding and pessimistic, shot through with a pervasive sense of ominous doom. Though its title evokes bright dreams, it is a story saddled with nightmares, cold-blooded violence, mental instability and even fratricide. And although it includes some superb performances from its extremely talented leads, and inspired, if unadorned, direction, the film borrows so much from Allen’s earlier work as to rob it almost entirely of any lasting power or impact.

It is not a spoiler to say that the two brothers go through with the crime. For all of its “will they or won’t they” tension, Cassandra’s Dream is not about the killing but what comes after it. Like Crimes and Misdemeanors and Match Point — indeed, all of Allen’s oeuvre — the crime is secondary to the emotional aftermath. Time and again, Allen asks, what if there is a God? What if He is watching and what if I will ultimately be held accountable for my actions? I may be able to hide from the eyes of man, but the eyes of God, should He exist, see all.

Surely these are fascinating and even critical questions. And surely they are immense enough to withstand the metaphysical attention of hundreds of filmmakers. And yet, Allen comes to the nature of God’s omnipresence so often, without varying on either his question or his answers, that his films have increasingly become copies of earlier works, degrading in quality further and further from the original with each successive reproduction until at last they are shown to be the thin and transparent facsimiles they are.

© Copyright 2008 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.