Review of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) by Jesse O — 23 Aug 2010

This movie is so goddamn great and beautiful. It's beautiful in the sense that this really has a LOT of little details that you probably won't notice when viewing this flick for the first time.

It's also beautiful that this movie has so much stuff going on, yet it's never hard to follow and every character and every scene is in there for a reason. When people say there's no wasted scenes, it's usually an exaggeration, but in this movie everything happens for a reason.

It's all logical, it all makes sense. With a plot such as this, and so many characters, you'd usually end up having a couple of plot holes but in this movie everything is solved by the end of the movie, there's no room for doubt.

It's really just a sight to behold that so many storylines and sub-plots all played a part in the climax and ending of the movie. Seriously, everything that happens in this movie has a bearing on how the movie will play end.

It's actually a very impressive piece of work when you think about it like that. Of course the script of the movie is one thing, but if you have a poor cast, then it doesn't matter how greatly written the script is, the movie would suck.

The cast of this movie is ABSOLUTELY excellent. Philip Seymour Hoffman is seriously one of the finest American actors to come around in the last 15 years. He really brings an intensity that I don't see from a lot of other actors.

The thing is, he's always a very believable performer. I think that he believes in what he's saying. He doesn't sound like an actor performing lines, that's what I mean when I say believable.

I believe he could fuck me up if he were really angry with me. As is evidence in this movie, the way he releases his anger over a certain thing his brother and wife did (*SPOILER*...They fucked), he doesn't take his anger out on his brother OR his wife, if you didn't pay attention to the nuances of his performance then it would have come across as odd.

But in the scene where (*SPOILER*) his wife decides to leave him, he's so great here. He never shows his anger facially or in any outward manner for that matter, but you can just tell that he's raging inside.

And the scene where he lets out his anger is so fantastic, it's really the anti-thesis of what you would think he would do given what happened. He's just a FANTASTIC actor, not that he needs me (or anyone else for that matter) to tell him how great an actor he is.

But seriously, the rest of the cast is fantastic. It'll be hard to describe their performances, when Philip stands out above the rest to a HUGE degree. And Michael Shannon is also great, he's got a great look about him, great delivery, great facials.

I think he's very underrated. The rest of the cast is great though, so that's all that matters. This movie is really great, it's certainly a complex family drama, but it really pays off in the end as it's just an excellent little movie.