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Before The Devil Knows You're Dead [DVD] [2007]

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Director: Sidney Lumet
Actors: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei, Aleksa Palladino
Studio: Entertainment in Video
Category: DVD

List Price: ~~£19.99~~
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Seller: fastdvd2006
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

19 reviews
Sales Rank: 5670

Format: PAL
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region: 2
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 112 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6

EAN: 5017239195686
ASIN: B001563HYY

Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: May 26, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days

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Customer Reviews:

Showing reviews 1-5 of 19

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May you be in heaven half an hour... July 11, 2008
Dennis Littrell (SoCal)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful

This is a thoroughly diabolical tale of just how bad things can go wrong. A simple robbery. Pick up some serious change. Get our finances together and everything will be hunky-dory. But--mom and pop's jewelry store? No problem. Insurance pays for it all. No guns. Nobody gets hurt. Easy money. br / br /Older, more successful (it would appear) brother Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) has a few minor problems. Heroin addiction, cocaine habituation. A wife (Marisa Tomei) that...well, he can't seem to perform for. His flat belly days long gone. Younger, sweet, slightly dim-witted younger brother, Hank (Ethan Hawke) with a few dinero problems of his own. Behind in child support payments for his daughter, in debt to friends and relatives, not exactly wowing them in the work of work, etc. br / br /Sydney Lumet, in this performance at the age of 82 (!), directs and gets it 99.99 percent right, which is hard to do in a thriller. I have seen more thrillers than I can remember and most of the time the director gets the movie printed and lives with the plot holes, the improbabilities, the cheesy scenes, and the hurry-up ending. Here Lumet makes a thriller like it's a work of art. Every detail is perfect. The acting is superb. The plot has no holes. The story rings true and clear and represents a tale about human frailty that would honor the greatest filmmakers and even the Bard himself. br / br /Hoffman of course is excellent. When you don't have marquee, leading man presence, you have to get by on talent, workmanship and pure concentration. Ethan Hawke, who is no stranger to the sweet, little guy role, adds a layer of desperation and all too human incompetence to the part so that we don't know whether to pity him or trash him. Albert Finney plays the father of the wayward sons with a kind of steely intensity that belies his age. And Marisa Tomei, who has magical qualities of sexiness to go along with her unique creativity, manages to be both vulnerable and hard as nails as Andy's two timing wife. (But who could blame her?) br / br /It's almost a movie reviewer's sacrilege to give a commercial thriller five or ten stars, but if you study this film, as all aspiring film makers would be well advised to do, you will notice the kind of excessive (according to most Hollywood producers) attention to detail that makes for real art--the sort of thing that only great artists can do, and indeed cannot help but do. (By the way, I think there were twenty producers on this film--well, maybe a dozen; check the credits.) All I can say in summation is, Way to go Sydney Lumet, author of a slew of excellent films, and to show such fidelity to your craft and your art at such an advanced age--kudos. May we all do half so well. br / br /Okay, the 00.01 percent. It was unlikely that the father (Albert Finney) could have followed the cabs that Andy took around New York without somehow losing the tail. This is minor, and I wish all thrillers could have so small a blip. Also one wonders why Lumet decided not to tell us about the fate of Hank at the end. We can guess and guess. Perhaps his fate fell onto the cutting room floor. Perhaps Lumet was not satisfied with what was filmed and time ran out, and he just said, "Leave it like that. It really doesn't matter." br / br /And I think it doesn't. What happens to Hank is not going to be good. He isn't the kind of guy who manages to run off to Mexico and is able to start a new life. He is the kind of guy who gets a "light" sentence of 10 to 20 and serves it and comes out a kind of shrunken human being who knows he wasn't really a man when he should have been. br / br /See this for Sidney Lumet, one of Hollywood's best, director of The Pawnbroker (1964), The Group (1966), Serpico (1973), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Network (1976), and many more. br /

5 out of 5 stars

extrapolation May 1, 2008
2cleverbyhalf (somewhere in the future)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful

Imagine you don't like anyone. Anyone. Including all the people who say they like you. Imagine you're desperate. Imagine you think you'd do anything. br / br /Imagine you commonly make mistakes. Imagine you rely on people who make mistakes. br / br /That's what this film is about and it's horribly brilliant.

5 out of 5 stars

Truly Superb May 7, 2008
Carlo_Von_Sexron (Leeds, UK)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful

A welcome return from Sidney Lumet. The premise is simple enough. Desperate for money to satisfy their own particular personal circumstances, Hank and Andy, plan what appears to be a straightforward hold up of their parents jewellery store in the suburbs. However, the plan is complicated and ultimately bungled by an over zealous accomplice of Hanks. br / br /The immediate fallout is laid bare at the start of the film. The events leading up to the hold up are then presented from the perspective of each of the main protagonists. Each building up the characters immediate backstory leading up to the robbery and then carrying us through to what happens after, ultimately the unravelling of flawed individuals and a loosely knit family. The plot is simple enough and could have been presented chronolgically in sequence. However it works very well as it has been executed. br / br /Cast wise, the brothers Hank and Andy are played by Hawke and Hoffman respectively. Hawke's character and ultimate predicament does appeal to your sympathies This is partly down to the fact he's clearly hard on his luck and his reasons for partaking in the robbery are ultimately dicated by the needs of his daughter and his over demanding ex wife. However, he is clearly weak and his judgement are ultimately what lead to the bungled robbery. Hawke's implacable desperation becomes more visible as the film wears on and his performance is as believable as always. br / br /Hoffman's character is far more interesting. His reasons for hatching the plan appeal far less, and even less appealing is the characters willingness to risk robbing from his parents for what appears to be sheer greed and indulgence. His unravelling is initially far less visible than that of Hawke's character. You get the impression that Andy has been in moral decline for a long time: the events which unfold over the course of the film appear to effect him less initially. However one scene in particular where he displays what I can only describe as 'lazy anger' when his wife leaves is a particularly great moment. Ultimately these two performance really stand out in this film. br / br /Notable mention should go to Albert Finney. Marissa Tomei whilst looking -ahem- great on screen, her role isn't really that significant enough to warrant any particular mention. The story could have easily excluded her but she provides some human context for Hoffman and his motives, so fair enough. br / br /Finally, it's great to see another Lumet film. The way New York is presented is notable in that it doesn't present a sanitised city as many modern films would have you think. The streets are worn and you catches glimpses of how New York was portrayed in the old films of the 70s. br / br /Anyway, best film I have seen this year. Superb plot, performances, direction and cinematography. 5/5 br / br /

5 out of 5 stars

Once again May 31, 2008
J. Simmons (Canary Islands)
Philip Seymour Hoffman's mumbling nearly spoiled this superb film for me (he completely spoiled Capote - thank goodness for Toby Jones in INFAMOUS). An ex-fan

5 out of 5 stars

Well I loved it! June 17, 2008
Mrs. N. Freake (Somerset UK)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

I thought this was a really good film. The acting, in my opinion, was superb and the story was simple. A good satisfactory ending. Job done. br /It was engrossing and highly recommended.

Showing reviews 1-5 of 19

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