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Woody Allen made two movies last year and Cassandra’s Dream is the better one. It has the same problem as Vicky Cristina Barcelona: the dialogue is stilted, and the actors sound like they’re reading their lines off a distant teleprompter. They talk too much, like cooped-up graduate students. (Is Woody trying to write characters who don’t sound like him? Do I want to watch a Woody Allen movie in which the actors don’t sound like Woody Allen? But that’s just me.) Ewan MacGregor is usually a fine actor but I didn’t believe a word he was saying. The reliable Tom Wilkinson exudes a greasy malevolence. But Colin Farrell—he’s spectacular.

Like Allen’s Match Point, which was also set in London, Cassandra’s Dream is about a murder and its aftermath. Ewan and Colin play two brothers desperate for money (One’s Scottish, one’s Irish, the only family resemblance is their hairstyles). Ian (MacGregor) needs 80,000 pounds to invest in a hotel in California. He’s glib, a small-time player; he gets himself an actress-girlfriend by pretending to be a bigshot. Terry (Farrell) needs to cough up 90,000 pounds or a loan shark will break his legs. Terry’s a decent guy, but weak; he has a gambling problem and he drinks too much.

The brothers approach their rich Uncle Howard (Wilkinson) who makes a counter-proposal: they must get rid of a colleague of his who’s about to rat him out to the authorities. The horrible deed is carried out—the planning and execution are genuinely nerve-wracking—and Terry immediately starts to crack. Colin Farrell withdraws into himself like a tortoise; you can see the waves of self-loathing coming off him. Farrell has always been a remarkably empathic performer—here you feel his nausea and await his imminent implosion.

Colin has appeared in movies that were disappointments or just plain awful; he’s been written off by many as a future star who didn’t make it. With this performance in Cassandra’s Dream and his turn as the brutish but sweet hitman in In Bruges, Colin Farrell establishes that he’s too good to be a mere star. He’s a character actor.

Here’s a new story by Woody Allen.