Reviewer: Alan Kelly Before
the Devil Knows your Dead is “as serious as a heart attack” and a
chilling indictment of humanity and the lengths the individual will go
to escape the bondage of their own personal hells.

Quite possibly the most solid piece of film-making that you are
likely to see this year. A film that will throttle you, make you squirm
and is extraordinarily uncomfortable to watch. It is a testimony to
Lumet’s vision as a director (Network, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon)
and Kelly Masterson’s (her debut) crafty ability as a writer.

Andy and Hank (Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke) are brothers
who make a decision that seems “as simple as a pimple” to fleece their
parents jewellery store which culminates in the violent death of
another family member and leads each character, everyone of them
clinging to a pathetic unreachable ideal to their own hellish
unavoidable faith.

The film expertly casts the net of human language,
catching feelings in image, conveying a mounting and menacing sense of
the sinister infiltrating the boundaries of the everyday world.

Of course, this film will invite comparison with 21 Grams with the
vertiginous, and at times dizzying narration and with Requiem for a
Dream in Masterson’s use of the family theme, it however surpasses both
of the above. It is broken up into small segments, without any neat
beginnings or ends. There is a cruel beauty to this film — Albert
Finney’s grief-stricken father is unremittingly bleak and horrible to
watch.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman is incredible, there is one scene, following
a spiteful confession from his wife (Marisa Tomei) where he slowly,
methodically destroys his apartment. Hoffmans scenes with Tomei are
surprisingly tender, the sort of intense, poetic, rare glimpses of
people at their most passionate and vulnerable that has been lacking in
cinema of late.

Ethan Hawke’s puppyish fool Hank inspires sympathy when you should
find him abhorrent. Marisa Tomei slinks about in her underwear, looks
sensational and gives a terrific performance. Amy Ryan is Hawke’s
exacerbated wife and amazing in a small slightly inconsequential role.
It is our flaws that make us interesting and very often beautiful. In
one word: brilliant.

Before the Devil Knows Your Dead goes on general release nationwide on Friday February 1, 2008.

Dir: Sydney Lumet | Writer: Kelly Masterson | Starring: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei, Amy Ryan, and Albert Finney