Before the devil knows you’re dead
For those who are not acquainted with Sydney Lumet’s career, I suggest you to look him up at the Internet Movie Database, he is worth a trip to the video store, always. At the young age of 83, his latest movie, Before the devil knows you are dead is second to none.
It is a gripping tale about two desperate and very different brothers (Hank and Andy, respectively played by Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman) who plan what is supposed to be a perfect robbery in a jewelery store… and naturally every thing goes wrong. The plot is straightforward, but there is nothing simple and straightforward in the acting, in the script and in the Lumet’s direction. Mainly, the movie is a study of 3 characters, their different sense of morality, and the way in which they deal with sorrow, grief, and remorse, after everything goes wrong. To reveal the whole plot, if you don’t know it, will be (almost) sacrilegious, however, as Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun Times) put it “this is a movie, I promise you, that grabs you and won’t let you think of anything else.” Hoffman and Albert Finney (the father in the story) are simply perfect. Hawke is less good, in my opinion. I found him sometimes over the line. Nevertheless, he remains perfectly believable as looser. Go and see it, rent it or grab on tv, if you get a chance.
How is that Irish toast? “May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead“...
