Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Veteran and iconic director Sidney Lumet brings the electrifying Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. This may be one of the best, if not the best film of the year. With a star-studded cast who turn in some of the finest performances of the year and their careers, its hard to resist the darkness of the picture. With the Requiem for a Dream meets Closer persona, the film tells the story of Andy and Hank, two brothers who come up with a perfect plan to solve all their financial problems; they will rob their parents jewelry store. All seems well when the plan goes sour which domino-effects a chain of events that will change their lives forever.

Lumet directs Philip Seymour Hoffman in his best portrayal in years, definitely topping his award winner Capote. Hoffman plays the hard-nosed Andy, as powerfully disturbing as he is irritating, Hoffman layers Andy emotion on top of emotion never giving the viewer any indication of what he may be feeling next. The character, while well written. doesn’t embody any type of redeeming factor to make the audience like him at all. His character might be one of the paramount written character studies of the new millennium.

Ethan Hawke in his most daring and striking turn of his career plays Hank, the easily manipulated loser who is easily influenced by his overbearing brother Andy. Hawke has never been more aware, more internalizing, more invigorating in all his years on screen. Hank is your tragedy of the story, a character destined to fail and drowning in his endeavors, or lack there of. This is the performance that is in dyer need of awards consideration as Hawke proves that he can be a leading man, even though his performance is clearly supporting. (as is the entire cast)

Albert Finney as the tough and nearly unsentimental father Charles breathes new life into his characterizations that we have never seen from the veteran actor before. As loving and caring as Charles may appear, his feelings for life especially his children run skin deep but with Finney at the helm and bleeding out of the screen with frightening poise, that latter part of the film becomes his show. Along with Hawke, an awards-caliber piece that is worthy of citation.

Marisa Tomei, in a role which on the surface seems underdeveloped and unneeded brings forth a brilliant performance that tops her work in In the Bedroom. It’s her one-liners and long stares out a car window that fish hook us into her world. Besides her words and expressions being so endearing, we haven’t seen her more sexy, more ballsy, more unlike Marisa which we have come to know in her later years of acting in Unhook the Stars and What Women Want.

Aleksa Balladino, Michael Shannon, Rosemary Harris and the incomparable Amy Ryan turn in limited but special performances respectively. All adding to what could be a serious threat come SAG awards time for Best Performance by a Cast Ensemble nomination. But I’m afraid in the end it’s Kelly Masterson’s brilliant, which is an understatement, miraculous screenplay that makes the film work so well. How can this concept be thought of which on paper seems so ordinary but in the end be so original and provocative?

You get the legend Sidney Lumet to direct your picture. In his later years, Lumet hasn’t stood out (at least in my humble opinion) in his films as he did in his earlier years. With classics like Dog Day Afternoon and The Wiz, Lumet revolutionized filmmaking and make it more artistic and scenic. I only hope his work here can not go unnoticed because it is a return to form for him indeed.

Consequently, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead excels and the most inventive levels. As the characters all inhabit something grotesque and grating about them, the radiance and grandeur of the eccentric type illuminates the screen and sends chills down the viewer’s body; creating fury and lack of comfort that follows you home until landing of the cranium on a soft light spread cushion.

Grade: ****/****