Before the Devil Knows Your Dead (2007)
Directed by Sydney Lumet
Written by Kelly Masterson
Starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Amy Ryan, Marisa Tomei
Release Date October 26th, 2007
Published November 5th, 2007
Sydney Lumet has already been given a lifetime achievement award at the Oscars. Those awards are given to artists whose best work is long behind them. Not Lumet who with his latest film Before The Devil Knows Your Dead crafts arguably the most engaged and fascinating work in his nearly 60 year directorial career. A thriller starring Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman as brothers trying to find some way to pay off their debts, Before The Devil Knows Your Dead unfolds from sleeze to tragedy and back again all the while holding the audience enthralled beginning to end.
Andy Hanson (Philip Seymour Hoffman) has the look of a successful man. His wife Gina is gorgeous and he's pulling down six figures a year in his high finance gig. On the other hand he has a serious drug problem and more than a little debt to take care of. Andy's brother Hank (Ethan Hawke) is far worse off. Even more in debt with an ex-wife (Amy Ryan) draining his bank account and a young daughter to support, Hank is in dire straits. Andy has a way to solve both of their problems but it won't be easy. It involves a robbery. To say much more than that would spoil a stunner of a plot.
Albert Finney plays the boys father and delivers a performance of devastating depth and conviction. It is some of the finest work in a multiple Oscar winning career. With Hoffman and Hawke in the lead and Rosemary Harris, Oscar nominee Amy Ryan and Oscar winner Marisa Tomei on board Director Lumet assembled a can't miss cast and unleashed them on a Greek tragedy of mismatched fates, fortunes and family ties. A debut script from Kelly Masterson invigorates the old master Lumet and with this cast in place Before The Devil Knows Your Dead becomes something beyond extraordinary.
