BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD (R)
***1/2
Directed by Sidney Lumet. 123 minutes.
Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei, Michael Shannon and Rosemary Harris. Released by ThinkFilm.
Sidney Lumet’s best film in years is a bleak study of
several characters, all of whom are in the same family, whose tragic downfall
plays to the tune of Greek tragedy. It’s a very good film about people who make
very, very bad decisions. In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, Lumet was one of the
most reliable
The film features a clan so dysfunctional that is makes you look forward to a family gathering during the holidays. We have Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman at his most cynical and grim), a real estate broker who is having some troubles with his foxy wife (Marisa Tomei, in various stages of undress) and is desperate for money to feed his drug addiction. Then, there’s his brother, Hank (Ethan Hawke in one of his best performances), a deadbeat dad and semi-dumbbell who is way behind on child support. The family’s patriarch (Albert Finney) obviously favors Hank, much to Andy’s chagrin, and the boys’ sister is some kind of religious zealot, it would seem. The film is told completely out of order, setting its action in a period of three days leading up to a disastrous heist and a few days afterward, when the family completely comes undone. Hank, Andy and Finney’s character all get a point of view, while the women here are merely victims to the brother’s acts of unbearable greed and stupidity.
So, the heist then. Andy suckers his brother into a perfect scheme to rob a mom and pop jewelry store, which happens to be down the street from where I work (Hello Bayside!). It just so happens that the mom and pop they will rob will be their own. Hank is a bit taken aback, but then money talks. Relax, Andy tells his brother, they’re insured. Needless to say, the heist goes anything but smoothly, leaving the robber (a creepy pal brought on by Hank who likes to listen to death metal to get “in character”) dead and their mother in critical condition. The film follows them as they attempt to cover their tracks, as well as swooping back several times to the beginning of the planning for the heist and its execution from several points of view. The film’s only mistake is a bizarre series of transitional cuts with a loud thwacking noise on the soundtrack - not quite as bizarre as the snowflakes in “Private Fears in Public Places,” but close.
We can all see where the film is going, but that’s okay. The film is not only not about surprises but really about how stupid mistakes play themselves out (Hawke continually leaves fingerprints everywhere, as well as leaving items in a rental car used for the heist, Doh!) and how unbelievably predictable people’s behavior can be, especially once they’ve gone down the path of royally fucking up. But bad characters make for good drama, as is the case here. Lumet, whose best films start down a particular road and hit the gas until the credits roll, is back in business with Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. Things get pretty dark by the film’s end, with more than a few deaths and even more double crosses, and Lumet pulls off this grim tale with style and substance, getting good performances out of his actors without a lot of wringing of hands and grandstanding “acting.” If the film does not quite reach the level of, say, a Dog Day Afternoon or a Network, that’s alright. It’s just good to see a director of such immense talents as Lumet back on track at age 83 with a film as gut wrenching as this one.