Popular reviews

• 

  Review by DirkH ★★★★½ 20

  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…

• 

  Review by josh lewis ★★★★ 2

  "it's too late to think."

  a simple heist premise that is fractured by familial melodrama and the sheer pathetic desperation and despair radiating off its characters. credit to lumet's skill with actors that he wrings about as much sympathy as one could out of this situation (god hoffman) before arriving at what has to be the most aggressively bleak and contemptible destination of his career.

• 

  Review by Nakul ★★★★ 1

  Sidney Lumet's first feature movie was 12 Angry Men and his last was Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. Talk about going out on a high note!

  Sidney Lumet’s Swan Song is an unflinchingly bleak and unforgiving tale that plumbs the depths of human immorality. It's kinda amazing that Lumet made it at the age of 82, it feels like the work of a gifted 20 something. There are some excellent performances from Marissa Tomei, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney and — of course — the performance of Philip Seymour Hoffman. That scene of Philip Seymour Hoffman breaking down in the car is so haunting.

• 

  Review by Jizzmonkey ★★★★★ 7

  Class acting across the board in this, and two standouts. Philip Seymour Hoffman shows us a journey of depth of character. He was the most amazing actor, his death such a terrible and wasteful loss (I do not presume to understand his pain; but that nobody could help him just compounds it for me). Marisa shows us lots of Marisa. And in Ancient Greece or Rome (or quite possibly both) she would have been on the one-woman shortlist to become upon her mortal death the Goddess of Lustful Release and Blissful Slumber, and famous and without peer for her way of bringing potential worshippers into the fold: by appearing naked before them during their loneliest moment and whispering soulfully to them, "You're next."

• 

  Review by Felipe Fritz ★★★★

  The forbidden chapter of the Before trilogy

• 

  Review by SilentDawn ★★★★ 3

  80

  Sidney Lumet directed Before the Devil Knows You're Dead at the wise age of 82. It was his last film, but it feels like he was just getting started. With Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei, hell, even Michael Shannon and Amy Ryan - this ensemble cast dives deep into the grime of hopeless family ties and desperate situations going from bad to worse. Singling anyone out would take all day, as this film is all about the work and method of performance, of initially sculpting a story from the character first and foremost. You can feel the approach of Sidney Lumet as he transforms a fairly standard crime drama into a fractured nightmare of broken…

• 

  Review by christian d ★★★★½ 4

  hands down one of the best movies of 2007, a gripping family crime tragedy that you would see unfold on late-night A&E. ethan hawke and philip seymour hoffman are giving career-best performances here, they play pathetic and desperate scumbags so damn well. marisa tomei is great as always and is naked for like 85% of her scenes, so yes, my crush on her continues to grow at an alarming rate. albert finney absolutely kills it, this man is in pain, he is out for blood and he wants answers. even my main man michael shannon pops up for a couple scenes, being rough and intimidating as always. but most importantly, i would like to thank this film for prolonging my life-long quest of: NEVER HAVING CHILDREN

  👹💎💰🔫💉

• 

  Review by PTAbro ★★★½ 8

  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…

• 

  Review by chavel ★★★★★ 8

  “It’s insured, so it’s a victimless crime.” – Andy

  The most anguished, tortured, complex, brilliant performance of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s career. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is the staggering crime drama where two hard luck brothers decide to knock off a mom and pop jewelry store – their very own mom and pop’s.

  Andy Hanson (Hoffman) proclaims, “We don’t want Tiffany’s. We want a Mom and Pop operation, in a busy place, on a Saturday when the week’s takes go in the safe. We both worked there. We know the safe combinations.” Mom is not supposed to be working that Saturday morning. A third outside criminal-for-hire was not supposed to be complicit in the crime. Alas, it does not…

• 

  Review by Scott Tobias ★★★★ 1

  Crackerjack. With this and the underrated Find Me Guilty, Lumet staged a mini-comeback before peace-ing out.

• 

  Review by Hot Take Nick ★★★★½ 6

  Geez what a f**cked up family lol. 

  I really dug the nonlinear storytelling for this. From the very opening scene it all unfolded so smoothly and kept your attention and your curiosity the entire runtime. 

  And that opening. Sheesh. I mean Hawke’s reaction alone had me invested right from the start. 
  Another small stand-out to me was PSH’s mini-monologue in the car about his dad. That just gave me chills. RIP. 
  That Michael Shannon cameo had me hyped too. 

  The score didn’t stand out on its own to me but it still felt like it served the movie really well. 

  And shout out playing CDs in the car. Still do that myself, though not as often as I used to. 

  Overall, this is a really well crafted film by Sidney Lumet. Tremendous execution of a riveting script carried out by the greats Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke.

  Sidney Lumet, Ranked

  Movies Watched in 2020, Ranked

• 

  Review by Cusack ★★★½ 2

  One of those underrated gems noones ever heard of but everyone should watch at least once. With some spellbinding performances from everyone involved and a runtime that is thoroughly engrossing it’s a shame it’s not talked about more often.