Sidney Lumet's back, with this drama about two brothers (Hawke and Hoffman) who plan a robbery in northern Westchester; it goes catastrophic, as now they are forced to deal with their mistakes and other family-tied issues. A hit at The 45th New York Film Festival.
Rated R for a scene of strong graphics sexuality, nudity, violence, drug use and language
Directed by: Sidney Lumet
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Aleksa Palladino
...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.
As both an evocation of all the director's obsessions (corruption of American institutions, familial secrets) and a step towards more abstract storytelling, Before the Devil develops and portrays a world where blood has run black and greed has infiltrated our last vestige of hope: family.
Straight out of the "best-laid plans" school of film noir, Sidney Lumet's no-frills, late-career entry into the genre is as dark, fatalistic and hard-bitten as the real deal.
As both an evocation of all the director's obsessions (corruption of American institutions, familial secrets) and a step towards more abstract storytelling, Before the Devil develops and portrays a world where blood has run black and greed has infiltrated our last vestige of hope: family.
...may be the only movie I've seen that earns comparison to both a great film noir and Long Day's Journey Into Night. It's proof that Sidney Lumet's talent is, in every sense, timeless.
The brilliance of Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead -- and finally its limitation -- is that it’s never clear whether this is the stuff of melodrama or Lumet’s gnomic little joke.
Ultimately, the film is just a smart caper picture with some good performances, but at times it's very smart, and Hoffman's performance in particular is one of the most natural and unexpectedly affecting that he's given in years.
...attention must be paid. Not just because the director in question, Sidney Lumet, is an inspiration who, at 83 years old, has made one of his greatest movies, but also because he has managed to make one of the best crime dramas in recent years.
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ALL AVERAGE CRITIC RATING
8.4
AVERAGE USER RATING (6 ratings)
7.5
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USER REVIEWS:
Oracle8
"May you be in heaven half an hour... before the devil knows you're dead," reads the opening title of Sidney Lumet's new film, names after the latter part of the irish toast. It refers to the brutish case of two brothers, Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Hank (Ethan Hawke), who have planned to rob their sympathetic parents' jewelery store—and while I won't go as far as to reveal Before the Devil Knows You're Dead's ending, what happens after is a catastrophe, as it seems. In crafting a successful caper picture, Lumet, whose Dog Day Afternoon ranks high on one of the best New York films ever made, has done it: whether via the fraught narrative—jumping back in forth among the characters and time, ultimately adding a unique feel for the film—or brutal control of tone and atmospherics, this is a hard-boiled film. Yet masqueraded by its bestial surface, there is a certain and, at first, ambiguous message throughout: that of family. This moral tie at first is not as illustrated, but as the brothers' family joins the matter as it crescendos in irreversibility, it becomes furthermore lucid: this term has no meaning to these brothers—to the point of death. As usual, Lumet's tight, bleak direction helps elevate what could have been an archetypal rip off to superlative level. Along with Phillip Seymour Hoffman's and Ethan Hawke's excellent acting, this is a film of startling brutality and methodicalness, with the feeling of total conviction and brilliance.
This movie is available on DVD/Video