Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

[Remo D]

I am literally in awe.

It's been about thirty years since Sidney Lumet knocked it out of the park with NETWORK. The man is eighty-three years old and he's still got it.

Same goes for Albert Finney. Okay, nobody's going to remember LOOKER as one of his great films, but I got a huge kick out of it back in the early 80s and that's where I first became a fan of his. He's no spring chicken either, but he's still riveting and one of the best actors out there.

Lumet works equally well with today's younger, popular stars. Philip Seymour Hoffman has never been better, Ethan Hawke is wrenching... and let's just say that nobody had ever better make fun of Marisa Tomei again. Her Oscar was NOT a fluke--watch her OWN every scene in which she appears.

The plot? A perfect, "victimless" crime turns out to be neither. You see how it goes down in the early stages, but the film jumps all over the place, filling in details both before and after the dirty deed--and each revelation makes things hellishly worse.

That's all you need to know.

That, and the fact that BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD is movie-making at its absolute best.

[DylanDog]

I remember loving "Looker" when i was little and it was on cable a lot.

This movie has a special showing near my house next Wednesday so thanks for letting me know it's worth seeing. Now just don't let me forget to go... lol

[DylanDog]

Saw it and loved it. Thanks for the heads up!

Tomei was indeed very good, though spending the first quarter or so of the movie naked sure helped!

I'm not sure I liked how the the story jumped around time-wise. It's a bit of a tired gimmick, imo. It wasn't awful, but I'm not fully sure it needed to happen like that. A good old fashioned, conventional structure might have worked even better. In these heist gone wrong movies, I like that helpless downward spiral you feel the characters are in as each scene gets a little worse. I felt some of that was lost by constantly shifting back and forth.

I did like how the ending was left a bit to the imagination. Will Charles seek out Hank? And if so, to what end? Presumably he now knows that it wasn't just Andy who was in on it.

(Off topic, but there was a trailer for "The Other Boleyn Girl" just before this. Holy crap, Natalie Portman and Scarlet Johanson in one movie? Can I possibly get a bigger boner?? lol)

[Remo D]

[quote="DylanDog"]Saw it and loved it. Thanks for the heads up!

Tomei was indeed very good, though spending the first quarter or so of the movie naked sure helped!

I'm not sure I liked how the the story jumped around time-wise. It's a bit of a tired gimmick, imo. It wasn't awful, but I'm not fully sure it needed to happen like that. A good old fashioned, conventional structure might have worked even better. In these heist gone wrong movies, I like that helpless downward spiral you feel the characters are in as each scene gets a little worse. I felt some of that was lost by constantly shifting back and forth. QUOTE]

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The time-jump thing worked beautifully for me... I thought it was far more disturbing that we didn't know just who the old lady in the jewelry store was until it was too late... from that moment on, I thought anything could happen in either the past OR the present...