Review of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) by Parker M — 02 May 2011

3.5 Stars out of 4.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is a more unwounded Lumet film but in its messiness its poses numerous cinematic pleasures. I wouldn't call it a modest work just a more bridled story, avoiding Lumet's particular voracity for satire. But like all of Lumet's films (such as Network, 12 Angry Men, and Dog Day Afternoon) morality has a way of fooling itself. Character motives are so important that what they desire is, for them, moral enough.

It's told in a non-linear fashion, fragmenting the happenings of a robbery gone awry. The plot is not quite like Rashomon or Memento, but more in the direction of Reservoir Dogs where characters break down events in order to justify to themselves and the audience what the fuck happened. But unlike Reservoir Dogs, characters dominate style in Lumet's film. His film also exists in no "now", but various pasts and from several signature point of views.

This ordeal is an implosion within the Hanson family. Two brothers, the sullen Hank (Ethan Hawke) and erratic Andrew (Philip Seymour Hoffman), plot to rob their mom and dad's jewelry store. The plan appears to be infallible. It'll take place in the morning, the mother and father won't be working, and the store is well insured. In films like these, the best laid plans always go astray. Hank brings along an accomplice Bobby (Brian F. O'Byrne) and he ends up shooting the jeweller (who, somehow, is the mother) and is killed himself. The father, Charles (Albert Finney), is the outsider of the story but the only character who is harmless. But as events unfold and consequence leads to punishment, everyone is guilty.

This is the cynic Lumet talking. His ideas and cinematic power do not let up throughout the film. He is a director who admires characters not because they are moral but are so very vulnerable. Rarely in a Lumet film do characters seem to change. They may be punished, challenged, or influenced but his films never escape their moral crises. I think that is the power of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. It moves like gangbusters, so much drama explodes, but nothing is resolved. We could argue justice has been served but it required an equally immoral action to do so.

There are problems still to be considered. Lumet has a difficult time managing a key performance: Gina Hanson (Marisa Tomei). Tomei in general has a knack for being underused, and it is shame here because her character is one caught in the middle of the tension. She is married to Andrew but is having an affair with Hank. This one subplot is in the background to the main narrative. It does not serve much importance other than to reveal character flaws. Lumet missed an opportunity to point more at a complex rivalry between the brothers. Andrew complains how he was the neglected child and Hank's baby face got all the attention. This simmering anger never corrupts these characters, and just sits there. Tomei, as useful as she could have been, is more of a stick in the middle of the trench.

I can see many critics being ambivalent about the final 30 minutes. This is because most of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead follows a story that is unpredictable, urgent, dramatic but rather preordained. We have this intrinsic prediction that these characters will receive their comeuppance. Things unfold like a Greek Tragedy where every character is expendable. The conclusion, as explosive and messy as it is, works because no other solution seems possible. That is the disturbing point. Carnage was the only path.

Is it necessary to tell the film non-linearlly? Well, that may not be the important question. I think it is why did Lumet tell it like this? Most of Lumet's films have been linear. Dog Day Afternoon, a social satire, had more timely issues to cover than to fragment the narrative. Network was a straight story of absurdity, which wanted to make a statement of 1970s journalism. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is not a satire but more of a stunt for Lumet to tell a similar morality tale distorted by an unfamiliar structure. Where his other films studied motives, this one reveals them.

Hoffman is the true force here. We can blame most of the problems on him, yes, but in a way we'd be missing the point. He starts the madness but all these characters are subject to it. Many characters die, but they do not depart without us feeling sympathy for them. Lumet creates his characters with such vulnerability so that they know they are sinners but cannot help being so. Human nature is fragile and in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, the fragmented narrative tries to make sense of this fragility. The story unravels to warrant why a character would commit such a terrible deed. Thus the story is the key to redemption.

Well, maybe not. But the plot disfigures time to give characters the space to escape their immoral dungeons. No matter how the narrative progresses, the characters cannot escape their fates. What Lumet does in his final film is state: indeed these characters are sinners and they are punished accordingly. This is another film that centres on the desire for money, but Lumet is the rare director that does not antagonize these people but admires them. He embeds them in a tragedy but hopes they will make it to heaven before the devil knows they're dead.