Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)
Directed by Sidney Lumet
***1/2
Torturous
Lumet's newest is officially the most successful film I've seen at creating that awful sense of dread you have when your life is crashing in around you. It's fascinating. It's startling. It's laced with POE of a sexual nature. What to do? For many, my advice is, do not see this film, despite my compliments for it.
Anguished
Andy and Hank are brothers, but not close. They're not all their dad would have wanted them to be, but they're doing OK for themselves. Andy (PS Hoffman) works as an accountant, but secretly dreams of taking off to Cuba with his wife (Marisa Tomei). Hank (Ethan Hawke) has always been the easygoing type, dad's favorite and not the kind to take a risk.
They don't have much in common. Other than the fact that one is embezzling from his company and the other is in an affair with his sister-in-law. And they both need money, badly.
So when Andy approaches Hank with the bright idea of knocking off their parents' jewelry store, the idea seems terrible. Unfortunately, to them, it may seem like the least of all possible evils, the new evil that will keep their current evils from spiraling out of control. Of course, we can see it coming. We know the heist—and their lives—are going to fumble wildly. Perhaps they know it, too. But you get the impression that sin has the brothers on auto-pilot. When you've gotten into trouble because of deception and underhandedness, it's hard to quit cold turkey.
Compelling
It's a magnificent film, really, and in many ways. The performances are outstanding, which is no surprise (and yet a surprise) from actors as subtly wonderful as Hawke and Hoffman. Albert Finney turns in another extraordinary performance as the boys' father who unexpectedly finds the props knocked out from under him. And Marisa Tomei manages to avoid being a shallow pin-up in a role that would have given some actresses no other choice.
To me, it was a valuable experience of coming to grips with my own fantasies that life is under my control, that my dreams are better than reality, that no one is as important as me. However, from the film's opening scene, and on through, the vein of sexuality became so pervasive as to be overwhelming. Though the story condemns erotic transgression, the images play with the viewer too much for the moral's own good.
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