Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Review By: Michael Dance
michaelmdance@gmail.com

Before the Devil Knows Your Dead is a new entry in the heist-gone-wrong genre, although while the plotting (everything goes horribly wrong!) may seem familiar, it surpasses its relatives with some of the most vividly-drawn characters I've seen this year. In the process, 83-year-old director Sidney Lumet proves his talents are as sharp as ever, providing clarity to the serpentine plot.

Like Reservoir Dogs (still the reigning king of this genre), the screenplay jumps around in time, but it's not just a gimmick: we follow each central character up to a certain point and then jump back and follow another, thus giving the film a functional order rather than a chronological one. The plot is driven by the actions of the characters, not the other way around, and the strong cast all dive headfirst into the moral morass of their characters.

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke lead the cast; Andy (Hoffman) is a heretofore successful businessman who finds himself in a situation where he badly needs some extra money, while Hank (Hawke) is his weak-willed younger brother, divorced and behind on his child support payments. Andy suggests a great way for the two of them to make a lot of quick cash: Hank can rob a small suburban jewelry store. It'll be easy, because they know the store inside and out. Their parents own it.

Nothing could possibly go wrong. Nothing at all.

Written down, it sounds even more ludicrous than it does on the screen. But we're in melodramatic territory here, and for a melodrama, its a creative concept. The robbery is the second scene in the film, occuring even before we know the context, and from then on, everything starts to unravel. Mom wasn't supposed to be working that morning, but she was. The wife of Hank's accomplice starts to get suspicious. Andy and Hank's father (a typically strong Albert Finney) won't let the situation go and becomes hell-bent on finding justice. Sometimes it even borders on comical: Hank left a CD in the rental car he used and keeps having to go back to the rental company. And on and on.

Most of this is plotted meticulously, although there was an occasional bit that seemed a bit off to me - how did Finney's character immediately connect all the dots? The most glaring failing of the film was Marisa Tomei's character, Andy's wife, who's also having an affair with Hank. (Again, we know this very early on.) It's the most underdeveloped part of the movie; we're given no information as to why they're even having an affair, and its only purpose is so that there can be a payoff later on when the truth comes out.

The truth is, the only reason her character is even in the movie is because she's topless in more than half of her scenes. While that ...