Before the Devil Knows You're Dead Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
2007 Directed by Sidney Lumet
Synopsis
No one was supposed to get hurt.
Two brothers organize the robbery of a jewelry store. The job goes horribly wrong, triggering off a series of events that send them and their family hurtling towards a shattering climax.
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Dear god, what a dismal tale. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is an exercise in taking an instance of 'it can't get any worse, can it?' and making it much, much worse in the very next scene. I certainly don't mean in the quality of the film, which is superb, but in the depths of misfortune one family can sink to. This is tragedy of such magnitude that The Bard himself would be proud, compounded by the fact that all the misfortune is due to greed and ineptitude. Sidney Lumet's swan song deserves a place in the pantheon of 'bleakest films ever,' which makes this familial train wreck all the more morbidly fascinating.
Not a single role here is…
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Whenever people make lists with favourite or best directors, Sidney Lumet hardly ever pops up. That should change. Look at his filmography. He is one of the best directors that ever worked in the industry.
This film is modern noir at its finest. It is bleak, rather disturbing and dark as hell. The story, which unravels in an asynchronous chronology, is multilayered and keeps you guessing due to its fragmented narrative. Only a very talented director can add the much needed coherence a story like this needs.
What Lumet understands very well is to give his actors the right amount of space to inhabit their characters. There is not one weak performance here. The main cast is superb, moved along…
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Even though I saw this years ago, I was still completely surprised by everything that happened during this recent re-watch. All I remember from the last time I saw it was that I liked it. This time, I fell head over heels in love. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is essentially a family drama masquerading as a crime drama. Andy and Hank are brothers in very different stages in their lives. When Andy asks Hank to rob a jewelry store, everything goes wrong and the rest of the film is concerned with how their lives fall apart and how fucked up their family is.
This is definitely Phillip Seymour Hoffman's best performance, and that's a big deal. He always…
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The late, great Sidney Lumet's final film, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is an intense, very well-made thriller that has more than a few surprises up its sleeve and floats easily on the strength of its lead actors, who give impressive performances. Definitely one I'll need to see again, but at first glance is still a damn great movie.
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It’s getting to the stage where it goes without saying that Philip Seymour Hoffman delivers a breathtaking performance. He’s done it so often throughout his career and here, alongside an equally impressive Ethan Hawke, he presents another encapsulating character. From the brief moments of comedy to the emotional arguments, the chemistry the two leads share is nothing short of fantastic.
Sidney Lumet’s direction is once again fantastic, which much like the star is as expected. The veteran director’s style is once again displayed with energetic freedom. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is another crime drama film that he exceeds at, but with the added caveat of a gripping non-linear narrative.
This is Lumet’s last film before his death in 2011 and this beautifully constructed exploration of family dysfunction and criminal incompetence is a perfect way to end his career. Despite having only seen four of his films, Sidney Lumet is fast becoming one of my favourite directors.
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I liked this movie the first time I saw it back in 2008, but I never realized just how amazing it truly is.
On my initial viewing, I saw it as just a thriller, and in that respect, it worked. But at the time, I didn't know what film noir was or how it translated to modern times or anything like that, but since then, I've done plenty of research and have only just realized that I wasn't looking at the movie the right way.
This is neo-noir if there ever was one. It has all the hallmarks of the style: there's Tomei's impossibly beautiful femme fatale, who functions only as a woman who wants Hoffman's money, and the only…
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The story is tightly executed with a plethora of great performances, the questionable decision to present the film in a fragmented, non-linear fashion does little to help the film, instead soften the impact the film might have been able to make if it were told straightforward.
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Thought I'd seen this one before. Turns out I hadn't. Although I had definitely previously seen a naked PSH and Marissa Tomei going at it doggy style in triplicate in the opening scene. It's not a sight you're likely to forget easily.
I love the essence of the dark noir storyline, I love Hoffman, I generally greatly appreciate the rest of the cast, I fully respect Sidney Lumet and his career, hey look that's Michael Shannon! it's the kind of movie that should be right up my alley but I just found myself not engaging with the story or the characters at all. There's a real disconnect in the direction for me, like the audience is being held back from the events as they unfold in their non-linear fashion. Does nobody else find this a bit gimmicky and unnecessary for this story?
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All actors played their roles fantastically but the directing was a let down. It could have been a lot better but disappointed.
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Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead turned out to be director Sidney Lumet’s final film, and what a way to go out. Its wonderful cast, engrossing story, and expert craftsmanship makes it a cross-genre treat and essential viewing for fans of any of the talent involved.
The set-up is simple. Two brothers, Andy and Hank (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke), find their lives in shambles and decide to rob a jewelry store to earn some fast cash. I won’t give away the plot intricacies, but it’s a film that examines how the reverberations from one bad decision can ripple outwards to affect a wide swath of characters. It’s not a new premise, exactly, and to be frank, Lumet doesn’t…
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Sidney Lumet's life as a filmmaker ended, in a way, in the polar opposite spectrum of where it began with "12 Angry Men." That movie was virtuous, about one man's search for justice and fairness inside that sweltering courtroom. This 2007 swan song finds him mercilessly tracking the moral ruin of two, horrible pathetic men on the road to hell following the botched robbery of their parents' jewelry store, which makes the Dog Day Afternoon job look like the first 10 minutes of "Heat."
Is this a perfect movie? Not even close. Marisa Tomei's confession is badly written and acted and we're left with only morsels of the damaged family history. But Lumet was America's most straightforward, economical master director…
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Dear god, what a dismal tale. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is an exercise in taking an instance of 'it can't get any worse, can it?' and making it much, much worse in the very next scene. I certainly don't mean in the quality of the film, which is superb, but in the depths of misfortune one family can sink to. This is tragedy of such magnitude that The Bard himself would be proud, compounded by the fact that all the misfortune is due to greed and ineptitude. Sidney Lumet's swan song deserves a place in the pantheon of 'bleakest films ever,' which makes this familial train wreck all the more morbidly fascinating.
Not a single role here is…
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Waddles through familial crime, dysfunction, and regret while going deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of consequence and tragedy. Lumet keeps it all from getting too unwieldy, showing a ridiculous amount of skill for a man who was about 83 years old at the time. When I'm 83, I just hope to be able to walk and eat solid food, so this is really impressive stuff.
It's too bad that the score insists on reminding you just how serious what you're watching is, like, every time it cues up. I was pretty aware of the drama without it. Otherwise, it's a film that probably has to sit and grow on me for a while, but the fact that I'm not utterly depressed afterwards says a lot to its favor.
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Horribly repulsing, but for some reason I kept watching.
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In 50 years of filmmaking, the great Sidney Lumet directed almost as many movies. He was an incredible talent, well-equipped to turn his hand to any genre, guaranteed to make the best of any script he was given. His last movie, directed at the age of 82, has just as much energy as any he ever made. It's a brilliant thriller, a vividly engrossing and dramatically daring work that ingeniously channels its depiction of an America in crisis through the hopelessly ill-fated efforts of a pair of brothers to get rich quick. Whether perfectly capturing the agonisingly difficult conversation between father and son, tracking a frantic mind through an apartment in an ingeniously unbroken shot, or making gradually more oppressive…