Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
by Sidney Lumet

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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Albert Finney, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rosemary Harris
Director: Sidney Lumet
Brand: Image Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 112 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-04-15
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: ThinkFilm

Movie Reviews of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Movie Review: One of the decade's best thrillers
Summary: 4 Stars

Sidney Lumet's Serpico/Dog Day Afternoon heyday may be several decades behind him, but with Before the Devil Knows You're Dead he's crafted a smartly written, complicated, and ultimately gut-wrenching suspense film that doesn't pander to its audience with cheap plot twists or manufactured happy endings but instead resides squarely in the real world throughout. If you're watching this movie in a dark frame of mind, you're in for a treat--its cynical, uncompromising view of the world and of human nature make it about as heartwarming as a Joy Division album. Relentlessly exploring the way unintended consequences can pile up on even the most seemingly well-thought-out schemes, the movie makes a compelling case that the perfect crime is nothing more than a fantasy. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is a welcome rarity in that it's an almost entirely character-driven thriller, a trick it manages to pull off because while it follows many of the conventions of the thriller genre, the movie remains firmly rooted in the dysfunctional relationships and day-to-day financial pressures that are a reality for all too many people.

After a brief intro, the movie jumps right into the meat of the plot, as an attempted robbery at a mom-and-pop jewelry store in suburban New York ends up with mom and the would-be robber shooting each other to death. It quickly emerges that the robbery was engineered by mom and pop's sons, yuppie d-bag Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and slow-witted, Fredo-esque Hank (Ethan Hawke), who mistakenly believe the family store will make an easy target and a quick fix for their respective troubles. Each has a compelling reason for wanting to get rich quick--Hank is drowning in child-support payments to his shrewish ex-wife (Amy Ryan, excellent as always in a minor role), while Andy dreams of escaping to Brazil with his unsatisfied wife Gina (Marisa Tomei, still hot even in her 40's), who just happens to be carrying on a side affair with Hank. Focusing mainly on the two brothers, the movie tells the main characters' stories in parallel, jumping around in time to cover the days both leading up to and following the robbery, and while this isn't exactly an innovative device at this point Lumet brilliantly exploits it to build dramatic irony and parcel out the revelations in the most organic fashion possible.

Even if it's not always the most ambitious movie ever made, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead manages to more than get by on the intelligence and depth of its writing, directing, and acting, especially from Hawke and Hoffman as the almost comically mismatched brothers. At times it's hard to decide which brother I wanted to punch in the face more--the weak, whiny Hank or the smug, repressed Andy--which is a testament to how believable both actors are in their roles. While Hawke certainly holds his own, Hoffman as usual is the star of the show as Andy, a drug-abusing snake and unavailable husband who exploits people and violates the law with no apparent reservations. In spite of his occasional moments of introspection, at bottom Andy is just a calculating, self-interested sociopath, as the movie's devastating final act makes perfectly clear, and Hoffman is perfect at making you almost feel for Andy in spite of his repugnant actions (also, his non-reaction to one of the big revelations late in the movie is beyond priceless). In the other central role, Albert Finney turns in a legitimately moving performance as Hank and Andy's father Charles, who suddenly finds himself aimless and obsessed with revenge in the wake of his wife's death. Finney's role doesn't appear all that substantial at first, but it eventually turns into an examination of the plight of the marginalized elderly on par with Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis's performances in the great Bubba Ho-Tep.

Overall, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is an extremely impressive effort in a thriller genre whose releases seem to be getting increasingly interchangeable these past few years. There's a palpable sense of foreboding that hangs over everything, which is brilliantly enhanced by Lumet's stark, unstylized direction. The violence is pretty minimal, but what there is is suitably blunt and unflinching, and attempts to soften the characters or the world they inhabit are thankfully rare. Best of all, it carries with it a strong moral about the folly of trying to find a quick fix for your troubles, especially when it involves trying to steal from your own family.

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Summary of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Master filmmaker Sidney Lumet directs this absorbing suspense thriller about a family facing the worst enemy of all itself. Oscar?-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Andy, an overextended broker who lures his younger brother, Hank (Ethan Hawke) into a larcenous scheme: the pair will rob a suburban mom-and-pop jewelry store that appears to be the quintessential easy target. The problem is, the store owners are Andy and Hank s actual mom and pop and, when the seemingly perfect crime goes awry, the damage lands right at their doorstep. Oscar-winner Marisa Tomei plays Andy s trophy wife, who is having a clandestine affair with Hank. The stellar cast also includes Albert Finney as the family patriarch who pursues justice at all costs, completely unaware that the culprits he is hunting are his own sons. A classy, classic heist-gone-wrong drama in the tradition of The Killing and Lumet s own The Anderson Tapes, BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOW YOU RE DEAD is smart enough to know that we often have the most to fear from those who are near and dear.

Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is an exceptionally dark story about a crime gone wrong and the complicated reasons behind it. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke are outstanding as brothers whose mutual love-hate relationship subtly colors their agreement to rob their own parents' jewelry store, and more explicitly affects the anxious aftermath of their villainy when their mother (Rosemary Harris) ends up shot. Hoffman's steely, emotionally locked-up Andy, despite pulling down six figures as a corporate executive, is supporting an expensive drug habit while trying to leave the country with his depressed wife, Gina (Marisa Tomei). Hank (Hawke), a whipped dog of low intelligence, owes back alimony and child support to his ex-spouse. Both men need money and agree to rip off their parents' business, a decision that goes awry and puts both men in various kinds of jeopardy while their mother remains comatose and their father (Albert Finney) lurches along trying to make sense of anything. Writer Kelly Masterson's screenplay employs a perhaps now-overly-familiar time-shifting tactic, jumping around the chronology of the story's events and replaying scenes from different vantage points. The effect is a little tedious but successfully deconstructs the film's drama in a way that shows how such terrible events are directly linked to family dysfunction, old wounds between parent and child, between siblings, that fester into full-blown tragedy. Eighty-three-year-old director Lumet (Serpico) employs bleached colors and scenes of blunt sexuality and violence, adding to the moral rudderlessness and banality of this airless world. If Devil feels a little reductive and insistently grim, it is also a generally persuasive work by an old master. --Tom Keogh

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