The Virginia Film Festival

Year: 2007
Director: Sidney Lumet
Writer: Kelly Masterson
Cinematographer: Ron Fortunato
Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei
Running Time: 117 min.

In Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead director Sidney Lumet, 83, makes a dynamic comeback as he explores urban malaise using out-of-sequence episodes that depict the four days prior—as well as the week after—the botched robbery of a small jewelry store. Filial impiety, sibling rivalry, marital distress, and crippling debt plague the protagonists of this fast-paced thriller which proves convincingly that human distress can be a lot more compelling than extravagant special effects.

Andy Hanson (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the payroll manager for a large New York real estate firm, and his beautiful wife, Gina (Marisa Tomei), open the film in the first of a series of vignettes. The couple is in bed in Rio one minute, and the next the action switches to the day of the robbery. Connections between the characters are revealed with teasing artistry. The driver in the robbery is Hank (Ethan Hawke), a likeable bum with a difficult ex-wife (Amy Ryan) who owes three months child support and holds a dead-beat job compared with his older brother, Andy. Hank and Gina are having an affair behind Andy’s back, while Andy conceals unimaginable secrets if his own. On the basis of this pic, screenwriter Kelly Masterson attempts to communicate that it’s not easy—or much fun—to be an American man.

Lead actors are outstanding in this melodrama spiked with suspense and timeless mortal folly. The title of the film comes from an evocative Irish toast: “May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows your dead.� This line alone reveals the sheer lack of empathy that exists within each of the characters in the film. The jewel-dealing crook who shares the truth with the Andy’s father, Albert Finney, sums up the only concrete commentary on morality that Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is willing to offer: “The world is an evil place.�

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