Before the Devil Knows You're Dead | Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead | Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei | "I got to get into character."

DVDs:

Before the Devil K...

	Before the Devil Knows You're Dead Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei ThinkFilm, 2008 average customer review:based on 99 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Oh What A Tangled Web We Weave, When First We Practice To Deceive

"Sidney Lumet's "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" is such a superb crime melodrama that I almost want to leave it at that. To just stop writing right now and advise you to go out and see it as soon as you can. I so much want to avoid revealing plot points that I don't even want to risk my usual strategy of oblique hints. You deserve to walk into this one cold." Roger Ebert

Sidney Lumet at the age of 83 has again directed a film for the ages. A film of a family falling down, round and apart. Philip Seymour Hoffman is amazing as the older brother in the family. He works for a successful real estate office in NYC. His younger bro, Ethan Hawke shows us how very great an actor he can be, and works for the same agency. The Greek Tragedy begins when a plan to rob a suburban jewelry store goes all wrong. The mom and pop of this store are in reality Andy and Hank's parents. Would you, could you rob your own family? You could if you needed money badly enough it seems. Andy and Hank are in great need of money. Hoffman as Andy, has a habit that leads him to illegal drugs. Hank Hanson, Ethan Hawke, has a snarly ex-wife who wants her child support and cares naught how Hank gets the money. As Sir Francis Scott has said 'Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive'.

Albert Finney plays Andy and Hank's dad. His fine acting lends this film the reality of the quintessential dysfunctional family. His actions, so akin to a Greek Tragedy seal the fate of this film. The two sons who have always pandered for best loved son, can now give it up. The family relationships are not explained and it is up to us to get to know them. Mom, Rosemary Harris, has a small part but is the agent of change in this film. Marisa Tomei the wife of Andy and lover of Hank, ah, we are beginning to see the light here, plays the tragically ignored wife.

"My grandfather, whose background was not so different from Mr. Lumet's, was dismissive of movies that seemed overly dark or despairing. "There wasn't a single decent human being in the whole movie," he used to complain. He might not have found any in "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," but he would also have recognized the humanism that saves this harsh tale from nihilism. The screen may be full of losers, liars, killers and thieves, but behind the camera is a mensch." A O Scott

Messy, emotional, melodramatic, film noir is my beat. This film has it all.

Highly Recommended prisrob 05-17-08

The Savages

Before Sunrise

Pope John Paul II

for more information click here

"I got to get into character."

"Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" is a tough crime drama that exposes the seamy underbelly of life. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke star as an unlikely set of brothers, both of whom are having money problems. Hoffman devises a plan to help them both get some cash - not surprisingly, the plan turns sour. The rest of the movie concerns the fallout of their actions. The plot jumps back and forth in time and is told from multiple perspectives; there are also some nifty plot twists, the biggest of which is revealed very early in the movie.

During the 1970s and early 1980s, Sidney Lumet directed a number of great movies focusing on big city corruption (Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, Prince of the City). He got off track afterwards, only rarely scoring with a moderate critical hit (Running on Empty, Night Falls on Manhattan). By returning to his theme of the evil in seemingly good New Yorkers, Lumet rises to his earlier directing glory - "Before the Devil" is easily his best work since 1982's "The Verdict." He's aided by a stellar cast, which includes Albert Finney and Marisa Tomei, who is so often under-used in films.

Many of the biggest critical hits of 2007 explored dark themes - "No Country for Old Men," "American Gangster," "Eastern Promises," and "There Will Be Blood." This film can hold its own against these heavyweights; unfortunately, "Before the Devil" was criminally neglected during awards season, scoring only a few wins from minor film critic societies. Hopefully on DVD it can reach a far wider audience.

for more information click here

Another Sidney Lumet triumph

****1/2

Irony and Fate are the true, de facto stars of "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," an ingeniously constructed and beautifully crafted tale of an attempted robbery - one that winds up going awry in ways that the participants could never possibly imagine or foresee.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke play two brothers who have recently fallen on hard times. Andy (Hoffmann) is a real estate accountant who needs money to feed his secret heroin addiction, while Hank (Hawke) is a doting dad who is already three months behind on his alimony and child-support payments. Hank, the "weakling," is initially reluctant to turn to a life of crime to solve his problems, but desperation and the persuasive powers of his domineering older sibling finally convince him to do it.

"Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" is the latest work by veteran director Sidney Lumet, who in his prime gave us "Twelve Angry Men," "The Pawnbroker," "Dog Day Afternoon," "Network," and "The Verdict," and who here demonstrates that, even in this his sixth decade of moviemaking, he is still at the top of his game. In his most famous - invariably urban-based - dramas, Lumet has always been far more concerned with character study than with plot mechanics per se - even when, as is certainly the case here, the film boasts one of the most purely fascinating storylines of any movie in recent memory. For, indeed, with every twist and turn of the narrative, Lumet and screenwriter Kelly Masterson reveal new and fascinating aspects of the characters, as we watch the brothers becoming ever more entangled in a web of their own making, till, finally, no good options are left. To draw us deeper into the plight of the characters and the world they have created for themselves, the filmmakers have come up with a demanding and complex - but always comprehensible - multi-level time structure through which to tell their story, creating a fascinating puzzle for the audience to solve.

Thanks to brilliant performances by Hoffmann, Hawke and Albert Finney as the boys' father, the movie evolves into a gripping family drama in which feelings and resentments, simmering just beneath the surface for decades, are suddenly brought to the fore by the heavy-handed machinations of Fate.

"Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" has all the earmarks of a classic tragedy, with one glaring exception: Andy and Hank demonstrate little of the potential nobility whose fall we would normally be called upon to mourn. This makes the movie a true product and reflection of the times in which we live.

First-rate on every level, "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" stands as one of the top movie releases of 2007.

for more information click here

....very good

I will not bore you with another synopsis of this film. Unless you beg me to and then I will just do a c/p of someone else's.
The open scene is quite the 'opening scene'....gets your attention.

This film is very well done. It is a film that is 'dark'. Reminds me of a Cohen Bros Film. Other directors might might have kept it darker with the use of light.
The cast does an excellent job.
Some parents do not have good kids. Some kids don't have good parents. You decide. Some things just are. You decide.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, page 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

products you might be interested in