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Another ‘Before the Devil’ review
By Lisa | November 14, 2007
Before the Devil is getting rave reviews overall. RottenTomatoes has it listed at an 88% fresh. This makes it her third highest rated movie ever topped only by In the Bedroom and My Cousin Vinny. Hmm, an oscar for her second place movie and a nomination for her first. Perhaps another nomination is in our girl’s future. Anyway, another great review of the film. This one is from orlandosentinel.com
Maybe Thoreau got it right, that line about most men leading lives of “quiet desperation.” But then again, Thoreau never considered the heist as a way out. Maybe some of the quietly desperate are willing to cross the line several lines in order to get themselves out of a desperate financial/personal/legal fix. To stop being “quiet.”
Everybody in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, the superb new Sidney Lumet thriller, wears “desperate” on their faces. Eventually.
The title comes from an old Irish expression, “May you be in heaven a half an hour before the Devil knows you’re dead.”
It’s a heist picture, told in scattershot flashbacks, about two real estate biz brothers (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke) who have money troubles and love-life problems. Andy (Hoffman) has expensive bad habits and a hot wife (Marisa Tomei, in her meatiest role in ages) and only wants to “get back there,” to some dream lifelong vacation, maybe in Rio de Janeiro.
Hank (Hawke) is his haggard, child-support-starveling of a brother, a guy whose own daughter has taken up the label his ex-wife (Amy Ryan) gave him: “Loser!”
The older brother talks the “loser” into a simple plan, a seemingly fool-proof plan. Then, in a flash, the plan goes wrong.
We pick up bits and pieces of the story, complications within complications. We meet the parents (Rosemary Harris and Albert Finney) of the brothers and peripheral characters who will decide just how far each man is willing to go to make life easier for himself.
Veteran director Lumet, in his best film since 1982’s The Verdict, moves easily through the flashbacks-within-flashbacks of Kelly Masterson’s script, though Lumet can’t resist gimmicking-up some of these transitions with superfluous special effects, calling attention to the shifts in time.
The older brother talks the “loser” into a simple plan, a seemingly fool-proof plan. Then, in a flash, the plan goes wrong.
We pick up bits and pieces of the story, complications within complications. We meet the parents (Rosemary Harris and Albert Finney) of the brothers and peripheral characters who will decide just how far each man is willing to go to make life easier for himself.
Veteran director Lumet, in his best film since 1982’s The Verdict, moves easily through the flashbacks-within-flashbacks of Kelly Masterson’s script, though Lumet can’t resist gimmicking-up some of these transitions with superfluous special effects, calling attention to the shifts in time.
More like this...
The "Alternative Oscars" on February 17th, 2008
In case you missed it... on November 12th, 2007
Yet another 'Before the Devil' review on November 17th, 2007
Topics: 'Before the Devil', Articles & Reviews |