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Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
SAI81 from from Tonbridge,
4th May, 2008
Andy (Hoffman) has serious money troubles, as does his brother Hank (Hawke). To solve their woes Andy proposes that they rob a jewellery store owned by their father (Finney) and mother, reasoning that their parents will be taken care of by the insurance and that nobody will be hurt. The heist goes badly wrong and the whole family’s lives begin to unravel as a result. Everyone thought that Sidney Lumet’s career was pretty much done and dusted, that’s when you win an honorary Oscar. However the director of, among others, 12 Angry Men, Serpico and Network has, at 83, made his most vital and engaging film in years. With it’s whipcracking pace, it’s non-linear narrative and it’s crisp dialogue Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead feels like the work of a young, hungry filmmaker, somebody setting out his stall rather than winding down a legendary career. Lumet draws excellent work from his entire cast. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is a flat out brilliant actor, with every role he transforms, he’s as close to a peak form DeNiro as anyone working right now. Here he’s excellent, unafraid to be completely loathsome as a man whose moral high point as a character is when he suggests stealing from his own parents. Hoffman is never overblown; instead his best work lies in detail, in quiet conviction, by which he vanishes into his character. There’s also a real originality to his choices. How many times have you seen that scene where a man smashes up his home after his wife leaves him? Here Hoffman makes that chestnut feel new by doing it with such methodical, almost clinical, slowness that rather than a cliché it becomes one of the key character scenes. Good as he is Hoffman doesn’t overshadow the rest of the cast. Especially good is the underrated Ethan Hawke, whose performance as Hank shows, just as much as his work in Before Sunset or Training Day, that he’s got a real talent for building people who feel real. Marisa Tomei has little to do for the first half of the film other than show of her (admittedly magnificent) breasts, but during the second half of the film she offers strong support, particularly in the scene where she tells Hoffman she’s leaving him. Finally there’s Albert Finney, he’s got the most extreme character arc, and he plays it brilliantly, taking you along as Charles descends into hell, each step absolutely credible as the film inches towards its shocking ending. It’s amazing to think that this is screenwriter Kelly Masterson’s first produced work, it crackles with great dialogue (particularly in a backyard conversation between Hoffman and Finney) and the plot constantly turns in ways you don’t quite expect. Here’s hoping that Masterson has more screenplays of this sort of quality in him. But kudos must really go to Lumet, he marshals all the elements brilliantly, never letting the interest flag and always making the film look fantastic. This is vivid, punchy, and high quality cinema, a great late entry in a great filmography.
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