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Tarfumes.com - Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
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List Price: $27.98
Our Price: $12.99
Your Save: $ 14.99 ( 54% )
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Manufacturer: ThinkFilm
Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei, Rosemary Harris
Directed By: Sidney Lumet
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Image Entertainment
EAN: 0014381487527
Format: AC-3
Label: ThinkFilm
Manufacturer: ThinkFilm
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: ThinkFilm
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2008-04-15
Running Time: 112
Studio: ThinkFilm
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
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Editorial Reviews:
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Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is an exceptionally dark story about a crime gone wrong and the complicated reasons behind it. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke are outstanding as brothers whose mutual love-hate relationship subtly colors their agreement to rob their own parents' jewelry store, and more explicitly affects the anxious aftermath of their villainy when their mother (Rosemary Harris) ends up shot. Hoffman's steely, emotionally locked-up Andy, despite pulling down six figures as a corporate executive, is supporting an expensive drug habit while trying to leave the country with his depressed wife, Gina (Marisa Tomei). Hank (Hawke), a whipped dog of low intelligence, owes back alimony and child support to his ex-spouse. Both men need money and agree to rip off their parents' business, a decision that goes awry and puts both men in various kinds of jeopardy while their mother remains comatose and their father (Albert Finney) lurches along trying to make sense of anything. Writer Kelly Masterson's screenplay employs a perhaps now-overly-familiar time-shifting tactic, jumping around the chronology of the story's events and replaying scenes from different vantage points. The effect is a little tedious but successfully deconstructs the film's drama in a way that shows how such terrible events are directly linked to family dysfunction, old wounds between parent and child, between siblings, that fester into full-blown tragedy. Eighty-three-year-old director Lumet (Serpico) employs bleached colors and scenes of blunt sexuality and violence, adding to the moral rudderlessness and banality of this airless world. If Devil feels a little reductive and insistently grim, it is also a generally persuasive work by an old master. --Tom Keogh
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: A Sharp Cast Led by a Brilliant Hoffman Ignites Lumet's Fever-Pitch Suspense Melodrama
Comment: This intensely involving 2007 character-driven suspense drama is like a big, juicy piece of Shakespearean-level steak from a master filmmaker who knows how to draw out uncommonly ferocious, to-the-edge performances from his actors. Consider for starters - Henry Fonda's lone dissenting juror in 12 Angry Men, Katharine Hepburn's delusional Mary Tyrone in Long Day's Journey Into Night, Rod Steiger's conflicted concentration camp survivor in The Pawnbroker, William Holden's wintry lion in Network, and Paul Newman's alcoholic lawyer in The Verdict. The list encompasses some of the finest screen work of the past half-century, and you can safely add Philip Seymour Hoffman's desperately controlling Andy Hanson to the ranks. At 83, director Sidney Lumet shows no signs of octogenarian fatigue, and in fact, he revels in the melodramatic turns of first-time screenwriter Kelly Masterson's thickly plotted script.
The scale of the story is deceptively small as it focuses on the moral compromises that unravel in a family where two brothers have become desperate for immediate cash. Woody Allen followed a similar fraternal dynamic in his last film, the oddly pinched Cassandra's Dream, but Lumet is neither pinched nor cautious in his fierce approach to this inescapable tale of ambiguity and deception. The plot revolves around a crime that was meant to be victimless. Embezzling funds from his real estate company's payroll to keep his neglected wife Gina happy and to satisfy an expensive drug habit, smooth-talking Andy is about to be exposed in an IRS audit. Meanwhile, his younger brother Hank is a mass of post-divorce, codependent insecurities falling way behind in his alimony and child support payments.
Andy concocts a supposedly foolproof plan to rob their parents' suburban jewelry store while neither of them is supposed to be there. The goal was for the brothers to collect the haul and the parents to claim the insurance. Murphy's Law intervenes in every possible way starting with Andy pressuring Hank to do the job himself. After some brotherly cajoling, Hank agrees to it, but too scared to do it alone, he recruits a reckless, gun-toting busboy to handle the robbery. By fate, the heist occurs on the one day that Andy and Hank's mother is opening the shop, and things quickly spiral out of control from there. Although the back-and-forth storytelling technique is not new (for example, Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams comes to mind), Masterson's approach works effectively in delineating certain events from multiple perspectives so that you understand how each character is led to the repercussions of the unfortunate event.
The acting is pitch-perfect starting with Hoffman's riveting performance as Andy, a Machiavellian reptile whose cool exterior and innate amorality mask layers of resentment toward his family. I thought he was great in Tamara Jenkins' The Savages, but he is even better here. Lumet even draws a solid performance from the usually insufferable Ethan Hawke as Hank, imbuing him with the emasculated weakness that informs his every ill-planned move. As their embattled father, Albert Finney acts with his typical late-career bluster, but he provides the necessary foundation for the Oedipal-level complexities. Marisa Tomei is a smart choice to play Gina, as the actress economically keys in on the responsive, watchful nature of a small but pivotal role. The estimable theater veteran Rosemary Harris (now better known as Peter Parker's aunt in the Spider-Man trilogy) has precious little time as the mother, as does Amy Ryan as Hank's bitter ex-wife.
There are scenes that border on excess, especially as the situation becomes increasingly desperate for the brothers, but the principals inject such energetic brio to them that the flourishes become forgivable. After the disappointment of the cartoonish Find Me Guilty, it is refreshing to see Lumet in peak form here. The 2008 DVD offers terrifically informative commentary from Lumet, Hoffman and Hawke, all of whom converse with ease and insight throughout. Along with the original theatrical trailer, there is also a better-than-average 24-minute featurette, "Directed by Sidney Lumet: How the Devil Was Made", which features on-set footage and snippets of interviews with Lumet, two of the producers and the principal actors.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Lumet Still has What It Takes.
Comment: I won't attempt to state the plot or anything else that's been covered by so many other reviewers. I'll simply say that this rather dark family story is a wonderful surprise. I frankly didn't think 84-year-old Sidney Lumet still had it in him to tell a riveting story, but I was terribly wrong. This beautifully written, well-crafted film is Lumet at his best and stands shoulder to shoulder with his many of his other memorable films. After a while, I started feeling like a voyeur watching this work because as implausible as the story line seemed and reprehensible the Ethan Hawke and Phillip Seymour Hoffman characters were, it all felt very real and believable - as if I was watching the tragedy of a real-life family unfold. The Blu Ray disc heightened the realism of the experience. This is a highly recommended work of art.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Before the Devil Knows Marisa Tomei's Naked.
Comment: "Hey little brother, I've got an idea."
"Yes older brother?"
"Let's rob mom and dad's jewelry store."
"You can't be serious, big brother."
"I'm dead serious. It's as safe as can be. Know one will get hurt..."
Enter in modern day Shakespearean tragedy-type plotline and, oh yeah, Marisa Tomei naked on at least three occasions, Phil Hoffman's bare butt on at least one more, and Ethan Hawke sporting his usual, cracked-out back alley mustache and we've got yet another poorly-written indy film that will likely be hated by many but adored by even more.
I could go all poor-man's Ebert on you right now, but I'm not going to because only three of you will read this anyway. This film is mediocre and possibly the worse Phil Hoffman film I've seen this side of Twister.
Did I mention Marisa Tomei will cause every choir boy alive to stumble in a myriad of ways? Makes you wonder why she started doing Hanes commercials being that she doesn't wear any clothes in 60% of her scenes in this film.
"Just wait until we get our Hanes on you." If Marisa is wearing them, I'm buying.
Gotta hand it to the screenplay guys out there. They know what sells DVDs these days, especially when your plotline is minimal at best.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Its official....Hollywood has run out of ideas
Comment: This is a depressing story about a family's implosion based on an unrealistic premise. The faults with the acting and story are well described by others. Particularly disconcerting was the still very hot Marisa Tomei playing the wife of a very unappealing Phillip Hoffman. Riiiight. In your dreams buddy. And to top it off, he cant get excited by her. Get real. Or is that supposed to give us some pseudo-insight into his character? No sale. The flashback technique tries to divert you from the realization that there is no worthwhile story here. Once the premise is established you can pretty much guess the rest. There were several times I almost stopped watching but I kept hoping the movie would improve. I regret sticking with it all the way. In the bonus features, the producers and other personnel are tripping over themselves talking about how wonderful everyone is to work with and how important they all are and how lucky they that Sidney picked this script out of so many others. Was this really the best that Hollywood could do? Don't waste your time watching this one.
Customer Rating:
Summary: albert finney
Comment: Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
great movieBefore the Devil Knows You're Dead
albert finney is great
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