Review of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) by Jess L — 06 Feb 2013

Any film that begins with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Marisa Tomei going at it doggy style has me sidelined from the get go. What follows is a weak attempt at a heist gone wrong story in which Hawke plays the "dumb" character and Hoffman the pushy brother with the hidden agenda.

What makes it hard to enjoy this movie is that you soon see how wrong the robbery goes and the consequence of their actions, you then have to keep watching for an overly long period of time to see these two characters get what they deserve.

They are completely unlikeable and therefore the one hour 57 minutes run time feels like an eternity. What a decline for Sidney Lumet. The frantic structure switching between different character points of view soon grows tired and again becomes an annoyance.

For me it lacked a certain edginess and whilst the acting was quite good there were too many negative elements in this film for me to enjoy the small amount of positives. Good job to the marketing team though, the trailer for this film created high expectations.