Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
DIR: Sidney Lumet • WRI: Kelly Masterson • PROD: Michael Cerenzie, Austin Chick, William S. Gilmore, Brian Linse, Paul Parmar, Jeff G. Waxman. • DOP: Ron Fortunato • ED: Tom Swartwout • DES: Christopher Nowak • CAST: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei, Amy Ryan and Albert Finney

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is ‘as serious as a heart attack’ and a chilling indictment of humanity and the lengths the individual will go to escape the bondage of their own personal hells. Quite possibly the most solid piece of filmmaking you are likely to see this year, this is a film that will throttle you and make you squirm. Extremely uncomfortable to watch, it is a testimony to Lumet’s vision as a director (Network, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon) and Kelly Masterson’s (her debut) crafty ability as a writer.

Andy and Hank (Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke) are brothers who make a decision that seems ‘simple as a pimple’ – to fleece their parents’ jewelry store. The decision culminates in the violent death of another family member and leads each character, every one of them clinging to a pathetic unreachable ideal, to their own hellish and unavoidable fate. The film expertly casts the net of human language, catching feelings in image, and conveying a mounting and menacing sense of the sinister infiltrating the boundaries of the everyday world.

Of course this film will invite comparison with the vertiginous, at times dizzying narration of 21 Grams and with Requiem for a Dream in Masterson’s use of the family theme. This film, however, surpasses both of the above. It is broken up into small segments, without any neat beginnings or ends. There is a cruel beauty to this film; Albert Finney’s grief-stricken father is unremittingly bleak and horrible to watch.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman is incredible, there is one scene, following a spiteful confession from his wife (Marisa Tomei) where he slowly, methodically destroys his apartment. Hoffman’s scenes with Tomei are surprisingly tender, the sort of intense, poetic, and rare glimpses of people at their most passionate and vulnerable that has been lacking in cinema of late.

Ethan Hawke’s puppyish fool Hank inspires sympathy when you should find him abhorrent. Marisa Tomei slinks about in her underwear, looks sensational and gives a terrific performance. Amy Ryan is Hawke’s exasperated wife and amazing in a small, slightly inconsequential role. It is our flaws that make us interesting and very often beautiful. In a word, brilliant. See this film.

Alan Kelly
(Read biog here)

Rated 16 (see IFCO website for details)
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is released on 14th January 2008
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead – Official website