Movie Review: Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007. Sidney Lumet)

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Cast: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, Marissa Tomei, Rosemary Harris, Amy Ryan, Aleksa Palladino, Michael Shannon, Blaine Horton, Brian F. O’Bryne
Screenplay: Kelly Masterson
117 minutes / Color

Sidney Lumet’s new movie “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” should give the acclaimed director a 6th Oscar nomination and maybe even a win. The film turns out to be extremely intense, interesting and the ensemble works wonders with their magnificent acting powers. Masterson’s original screenplay cannot get any better and the film is one of the most unpredictable of the year. As you watch, you will cling onto your seats, terrified and in wonder of what the main characters will do next. The experience is amazing.

In the story, we meet Andy (Academy Award winner Phillip Seymour Hoffman), a man married to the sexy Gina (Academy Award winner Marissa Tomei), but still unhappy with his “low paying job” even though we all know his money goes to drugs and not himself and his wife. We also meet Hank (Ethan Hawke), Andy’s brother who has a lot of debts and Child Support to pay, without the means to pay it. The brothers lead miserable lives struggling for money, until Andy gets an idea…

In the Suburbs, their parents, Charles (Albert Finney) and Nannette (Rosemary Harris), own a high class jewelry shop with around $600,000 dollars worth of rocks and bobs and necklaces. They device a plan that Hank would go there early one weekend and rob their parents shop with a toy gun and escape quickly, but Hank does one move that changes the whole course of their plan…and their lives.

On his way to the shop, Hank picks up a friend named Bobby (Bryan F. O’Bryan) to help him rob the place. As Bobby robs the shop, Hank’s frightened mother does her best to defend herself and grabs a gun from the counter cabinet. When Bobby gets shot by Nannette, his only impulse is to shoot her back and they both die…

Now with the thing they’ve done, the boys must face the personal grief of their mother’s death, while having her and their friend’s death in their conscience. Their father, Charles (Albert Finney) is extremely not happy and begins an investigation of his own.

After the funeral, the boys still need their money…badly, but their personal lives are cracking up as the family turns more dysfunctional and ugly. Hank now must also face death threats from Bobby’s family members and must pay them $10,000 to support Bobby’s wife and child.

The boys have no way out and must take things into their own hands. Andy, a little crazy after he learns his wife was actually cheating on him for his brother, kills his Drug Dealer and takes his money to try and pay back Bobby’s family before his brother gets murdered.

When Andy and Hank arrive at Bobby’s house to give his widow and his brother-in-law their money, Andy gets a sudden (and wrong) impulse and shoots the brother-in-law rapidly in the face. He turns to his brother, still angry at the fact he’s been sleeping with his wife, this gives Bobby’s widow time to grab a gun and shoot Andy in the belly. Hank runs away and is never seen again.

Andy is soon sent to the hospital and Hank escapes with enough money to pay his debts. However, their father Charles, who learned from an old Jewel Seller contact that his son Andy was trying to sell him jewels, he knows that his son (missing out Hank) was the one who organized the whole crime that lost his wife…he then travels to the hospital.

As he sees Andy on the bed apologizing to him, he says to his son that everything is okay and misleads him, allowing him to sleep. As his son is at rest, Charles grabs a pillow and suffocates him till he dies of “natural causes”.

“Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” is definitely dark and crazy, but if you look closely at the movie, you’ll realize that it’s one underrated piece of work, that isn’t just full of death and sex and drugs, but it’s a masterpiece in two ways: acting and writing.

The screenplay of Masterson: WOW, one of the most unflawed works on the year. The way it was written was so unique and well done. The way we get to see all the character’s point of views in this particular event is just genius. It makes us feel that all characters play such a big part in the story (that’s why it hurts for me to put Ethan in his campaigned category: Supporting). Lumet’s unconventional direction and the magnificent film editing compliment the screenplay very, very well.

However, the main attraction of “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” is it’s magnificent ensemble of talented artists. All the performances in this movie (even the few minutes of Rosemary Harris) are so flawless and first-rate that you’d like to kill yourself from over amazement…

Supporting players Albert Finney and Marissa Tomei make their screen time worth while with really great acting. Tomei, who I last remember in “Alfie” (2004) didn’t make me cringle at all. She was pretty good, but still, her work in “In the Bedroom” (2001) is far superior. Albert Finney was great, but once again (like Tomei) his other films, particularly his recent supporting roles in “Big Fish” (2003) and “Erin Brockovich” (2000) are far, far, far superior then his performance in this. They are not bad at all, just not as brilliant as Hawke and Hoffman.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman was great, no “Capote” (2005) but his role is very much too memorable not to give him a Best Actor nominations (at least for now), but I do have the sense he’s overrated in this film for one reason: everyone says he’s better then Ethan Hawke. WHICH I FIND VERY CRIMINAL.

Ethan Hawke was all glory and no play and I’m singling him out as not only the best performance in the entire duration of the film, but also one of the best supporting actors of the year. He was very brilliant. In a weak year for supporting performances, it truly makes me cringe knowing they he’s not getting enough attention…the attention he truly and desperately needs and lacks. Hawke was the bomb and made “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” a true piece of art because he stole the show from “lead” Hoffman and led the ensemble with a great, passionate, dark, show-stopping performance.

This drama is full of great suspense and thrills and Masterson gives the characters a certain depth that we end up relating (or at least “feeling”) for their problems. “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” goes beyond an ensemble drama, which right now so many people are classifying it as, and transforms itself into a film with everything an Oscar/Film lover needs.