Before The Devil Knows You're Dead (DVD)

...one he's flashing back to before allowing the action to continue with a subtitle announcing whose story we're following and the time in relation to the robbery. But having seen the nervy crime so early on, there's little dramatic impetus. The excess of pregnant pauses feels self-indulgent and the pace judders as a result of the timeline-hopping. So the movie really drags and Lumet allows it to dribble on for far too long before an unsatisfying fade-to-white ...
...overlong hundred-and-twenty minutes.

The screenplay by Kelly Masterson tries to turn the heist movie on its head by chopping up the narrative and playing it out of sequence. Sadly it feels like an exercise in form for form's sake. And it's not exactly a new concept; Jean-Luc Godard said "A film should have a beginning, a middle and an end but not necessarily in that order." And Quentin Tarantino took him at his world with ... more

Brothers Andy and Hank are so short of money they plan the robbery of a jewellery store. The heist goes south and they find themselves in increasingly deep water. But how did they become so desperate and why would they plan a crime so close to home?

Sidney Lumet may be a well-regarded director, but his latest offering feels more like an exercise in cinematic technique than a solid narrative. It relies on a jigsaw format that shows the key events repeated in various orders with the emphasis on specific characters. So we see everything from everybody's perspective, seeing multi-camera angles of some scenes and longer versions of others, depending on which character we're following. It feels like an affectation that only serves to highlight the shortcomings in the screenplay and makes the whole film repetitive. The end result is film that looks more like it's been made in the editing room than on set.

It doesn't help that Lumet appears to see his characters as a means to an end. So his treatment of them feels sterile. This impression is further accentuated by his cold visual palette that focuses on greys and blues. Shooting in digital video with natural lighting makes the characters and their environments look washed-out. Though this may feed into their often bleak worldview, it makes the movie far less appetising to watch than if it were a little glossier. The way Lumet segues between time-frames also feels stagy. He flashes between static shots of the current situation and the one he's flashing back to before allowing the action to continue with a subtitle announcing whose story we're following and the time in relation to the robbery. But having seen the nervy crime so early on, there's little dramatic impetus. The excess of pregnant pauses feels self-indulgent and the pace judders as a result of the timeline-hopping. So the movie really drags and Lumet allows it to dribble on for far too long before an unsatisfying fade-to-white ending. Needless to say I found this a frustrating and overlong hundred-and-twenty minutes.

The screenplay by Kelly Masterson tries to turn the heist movie on its head by chopping up the narrative and playing it out of sequence. Sadly it feels like an exercise in form for form's sake. And it's not exactly a new concept; Jean-Luc Godard said "A film should have a beginning, a middle and an end but not necessarily in that order." And Quentin Tarantino took him at his world with "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction". So this is a case of money for old rope. It might work if the characterisation was stronger but there isn't sufficient background to any character. For instance, we don't know why Andy has become drug dependent. His relationship with his younger brother Hank is wishy-washy and his marital breakdown seems to be borne of little more than mutual indifference. Hank comes across as a spineless, easily-led tag-along without any ambition or drive of his own. Meanwhile their father is a stock distant, disapproving dad. The women are virtually all presented as dismissive, angry wives with the exception of Andy and Hank's mother, who barely has a personality. We never get to the bottom of Andy's wife Gina's low self-esteem, so she feels incomplete as a character. It doesn't help that there is a dearth of likable players, making it almost impossible to empathise with anyone. Without reasonable character development, there simply isn't enough story to go round and the characters' issues (drug abuse, a rocky divorce, bereavement, an unsatisfying marriage) feel like hollow attempts to bring relevance to the script. The dialogue is leaden and loaded with apparently significant pauses that appear designed to slow the pace right down.

I really enjoy watching Oscar-winner Phillip Seymour Hoffman because he commits entirely to every part he plays. This is certainly the case with the role of Andy. He's a smug and slimy businessman so emotionally repressed than when he finally breaks down, he does so in a strangely calm and controlled fashion. Yet his need for control is totally at odds with his status as a jittery junkie willing to do anything to fund his next fix. It's a brave turn that shows Hoffman isn't afraid to be unlikeable - in fact he's downright repugnant.

Ethan Hawke is at a strange place in his career where he's too old to play the boyish characters that made his name and too young to get the really meaty parts. He always feels like he's playing second fiddle, as in "Training Day" and the same is true here as twitchy, easily-led man-child Hank. He doesn't have a strong enough personality to feel like anything other than a plot driver. Perplexingly Marisa Tomei seems to spend most of the movie topless, so much so that the quality of her acting becomes something of a moot point. We don't see enough of the character's emotional life to understand her self-loathing. Meanwhile Albert Finney and Rosemary Harris are both underused as the brothers' parents.

The original music by Carter Burwell has the same failing as the rest of the film; namely that it is plagued by repetition. It is also a score that takes itself very seriously. It opens with dour harp and string arrangements accompanied by rising woodwinds that assure you that what will follow won't be light entertainment. Tense situations are reflected in the use of gamelan, metallic percussion and forbidding, rising strings intended to set nerves jangling. The seriousness of particular scenes is underlined by piano and flute motifs, while rising timpani in conjunction with flutes and harps tries to add drive to other sequences. But overall the music is overused and unimaginative.

"Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" is a film that thinks itself far more innovative than it really is. But there is nothing new or imaginative enough to differentiate it from a whole slew of post-Tarantino crime movies. The direction relies on too many sterile technical tricks to make you care about the characters. The characterisation lacks depth, the story and jigsaw narrative feel contrived. Even a solid central performance from Phillip Seymour Hoffman can't save the film from its greater excesses. Perhaps if you haven't seen anything with this kind of framework before, you'll find it new and refreshing. But if you're expecting something with the sparkle of "Pulp Fiction" you'll be disappointed. 

...less