Film
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)
Dir. Sidney Lumet
I had an urge to watch a Sidney Lumet film. I felt it was definitely time to start exploring his filmography, and I decided to start with his 2007 film "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke and Marisa Tomei. It also helped that I wanted to explore a bit more of PSH's filmography too, so this was a double whammy.
To preface, I knew nothing about this film before I dove into it. Besides the main actors and the director attached, I knew nothing of the story, and that overall people thought this movie was somewhere between mediocre and pretty good.
So we begin the film with a shot of a flabby naked Hoffman having sex with a stunning Marisa Tomei during their vacation in Brazil. All seems pretty well for Hoffman; sexy wife, vacation in Brazil, the fact that he's a pretty well off real estate broker making six figures and so on. Cut to a robbery of a jewelry store gone horribly wrong. Next thing you know Hoffman, along with his brother played by Ethan Hawke are all of a sudden stuck in a spiraling state of constant fear, anguish and regret. Their plan to rob their parent's jewelry store didn't go as smoothly as they thought.
I love these types of films. Two, pretty regular American families, thrust into hell after their greedy plan does more harm than good. You see this theme plenty in Coen Bros. films, and they know how to do it right, and luckily so does Lumet. The theme of "human wants more than he can bargain for, and soon pays the price". Hawke's character didn't need much money, he was something like $3000 behind rent. He had a family, with a young daughter who was proud of her acting performances in school but to embarrassed by her father who could never make time for her. They didn't need to rob a jewelry store! According to Hoffman, they would've both come out with $60,000. Excessive greed.
When all Hawke wanted was $3000 to cover some looming expenses, he was instead treated to the hellish reality of his mother and father being affected by their crime, the shady boyfriend of Hawke's accomplice's sister, and the constant dread of being caught by the police.
The movie as a whole is great. The story, the characters, the acting and the directing all shine. It's how far all of these aspects go, that really put the frosting on the cake. I'm a big Philip Seymour Hoffman fan, and he really hit it out of the park with this roll, and I expected nothing else. He can be cool and level headed in one instance, and exploding with rage and fury in another. You really don't know how far he's willing to go to make things work until you really see how far he goes. His performance was mesmerizing and he really carried the movie forward.
It was great to see some strong acting from Ethan Hawke as well. He played the the regular Joe, just wanting to get by with what he has, never in the business of doing anything illegal to get his way, but when you have a brother like Hoffman, sometime its hard to turn away from someone who is so devilishly convincing. After the botched robbery that he was directly a part of, he gets progressively more paranoid until he finally loses all hope.
I enjoyed the direction by Sidney Lumet in this film. He has a knack for condensing a shot to its most basic form, really focusing on what's important and never giving you any fluff to deal with. The emotions he brings out between the relationship of Tomei's character and Hoffman really adds another layer of uneasiness to the whole situation. As if their problems weren't bad enough, we know there is another issue looming over Tomei's head that would only make Hoffman pop even more. It's fun to see how Lumet treats his characters, and in turn his audience with a sense of panic and hysteria that keeps getting worse before getting any better.
Before I end this post, I almost forgot to mention Albert Finney's performance as Hoffman's and Hawke's father. His drive to find the perpetrator knows no bounds, and his emotions come out strong and convincing as a grieving husband and a disappointed father.
I would definitely recommend this movie, and I was happy that my early experience with a Sidney Lumet film was a great one!
Rating: 5/5
