Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD
By
Taylor Pero

This is a movie you will not soon forget. I still can't and want to see it again because there is so much to be harvested through a second viewing. It begins quietly with a scene of fornication between a husband and wife ... not the wild, passionate sex of illicit lovers pounding at each other as if their lives depend on reaching that ultimate orgasm, but the kind of fornication that is steady and methodic, the union of two bodies well known to one another enjoying one of humanities most precious instincts.

The scene is long and unhurried and establishes the relationship between Andy (played to perfection by Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and his wife Gina, also beautifully crafted in the person of Marisa Tomei, who has become a stunning woman and formidable actress not inhibited about the nudity called for throughout the movie.

Veteran film-maker Sidney Lumet knows how to suck you in to this tale of tragic circumstances focused on just one family as a simple plot of robbery goes completely wrong before your eyes, ending in the destruction of the family core.

In retrospect, this could have been a comedy of errors, but Lumet deftly weaves a psychological what-happens-next story fraught with unexpected side-stories that focus on each family member in their own moment pertaining to the pinpoint event that the movie revolves around.

The film's title is taken from the bleak but amusing Irish toast, "May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead."

Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the eldest son, Andy, gives a riveting performance as a successful real estate broker turned embezzler/drug addict whose parents own a small jewelry store in the suburbs of New York. Knowing that he's days away from IRS auditors going through his company accounts, Andy hatches a feeble scheme for Hank to rob their parents store. Andy reasons it's a win-win situation because the jewelry is insured and so his parents won't really be out of money when they collect on it and he'll have the six hundred thousand needed to set things straight with his company and drug dealer, a high style transvestite who lives in a classy high rise and injects his customers while laying on a plush bed so they can relax and enjoy their trip.

Andy's younger brother, Hank, (Ethan Hawk at his best yet) is a not-very-bright loser three months behind on his child support, a spineless jellyfish talked into robbery to help older brother Andy out.

What Andy doesn't know is that Hank is screwing his wife once a week in his shabby dump of an apartment.

Unfortunate Hank doesn't have the balls to go through with the robbery by himself so he enlists the help of another incompetent loser played by Brian F. O'Byrne who enters the store shortly behind the clan's Mother (Rosemary Harris) who is subbing for her husband, Charles (veteran actor Albert Finney) who has an errand that day. The incompetent thief sets the robbery in motion while Hank waits nervously in their getaway car. Things go wrong ... terribly wrong and both Mother and thief are shot dead.

From that moment on the movie explores the interaction between family members by blood and marriage as they become entwined in their terrible tragedy. The whole things is like an ancient Greek tragedy set in suburban New York and has more plot twists and unexpected events than the snakes growing out of Medusa's head.

As much as I dislike the process of flashbacks, this story could not be told in any other way and still keep you in your seat. There are scenes and moments so real you'll swear you were there, most notably a scene at the very end played by Albert Finney that requires no dialogue, just acting, and shows in close-up his character's range of emotion during an event that will probably earn Finney an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actor and haunt audiences for the rest of their lives.

It's a superb film with a superb cast each giving superb performances in a film that is simply superb.