Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead


Hank (Ethan Hawke) and Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) think they have a safe and simple heist at hand . The plan is to rob their parent's jewellery store at a strip mall. But when it goes horribly wrong, the lives of the brothers start to unravel. Not that it was going well in the first place. Andy's wife Gina, played with aplomb by Marisa Tomei, is sleeping with Hank. That only adds to gut wrench that this film directed by Sidney Lumet induces. A very tight crime drama that completely hides the fact that Lumet was 82 when he directed it.

Rating: * * +

1 comment:

wenerd said...

Watched this after Asha came across it in an Ethan Hawke interview. As KK puts it, remarkable that an 82 year old Sidney Lumet can make such a cynical and dark film.

PSH as always holds centre stage. And there were scenes that I suspect were enacted as he eventually got out.