Writer Kelly Masterson may not have a long list of credits to their name, but they certainly provide quality ahead of quantity. I have enjoyed everything I have seen from him so far, and there are one or two of his screenplays that I absolutely love. Including this one.
Things pretty much start with a botched robbery. Gunshots are fired, and people are wounded, in potentially fatal ways. We then start to jump back and forth in time, watching both the planning for the robbery and the many loose ends that need tied up in the aftermath. At the heart of everything stands Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Hank (Ethan Hawke), two brothers trying to seize an opportunity. Both need a large cash injection to improve their lives, and both have feelings for the lovely Gina (Marisa Tomei). Both also find themselves way out of their depth as soon as their plans go awry, but one of the brothers may have more determination to do whatever is necessary to turn their mistakes into an opportunity.
Directed by Sidney Lumet, a man who has directed more classics than I could list here (just check out his filmography and start working your way through them all, you won’t be disappointed), Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead is a classic neo-noir structured to draw viewers closer to the main characters before showing everything falling apart around them. Every extra detail revealed works to compound the initial error in judgement that set everyone on a path to somewhere predictably dark and unpleasant. Lumet isn’t interested in making things overly stylish or slick, and I don’t think he ever is, as he once again makes his life easier by marrying up a perfect cast to an absolutely brilliant script. There’s a sadness and desperation to the leads that stops them from ever feeling too entertaining or too cool, and each performance feels built wholly around a kernel of authenticity that makes it so much easier to watch the events unfold without feeling held back by a layer of cinematic artifice.
Hoffman and Hawke absolutely nail their onscreen sibling relationship, with both delivering superb performances that complement one another beautifully. Hoffman is the man with the plan, and the one who actually needs everything to work out as intended, while Hawke’s character is much more nervous, and much easier to push around than his brother. Tomei is an excellent choice for the role of Gina, a believable motivator for the men who want to keep her in their lives, and Albert Finney has a role that becomes more and more integral to the film as we watch things come to a head. On top of that, you have some screentime for Michael Shannon, Amy Ryan, Alexsa Palladino, and Leonardo Cimino, all doing excellent work, whether onscreen for just the one scene of a few different moments.
Carter Burwell’s score is a beautiful accompaniment to the changing pace of the writhing plot, and the very end of the film has both Masterson and Lumet making a couple of strong choices that I think were absolutely the right ones, delivering a finale that is impactful and satisfying.
I don’t know why I didn’t ever make time for this before, but I am glad I finally got around to it now. Slot it into your own viewing schedule as soon as you can. I cannot imagine anyone being disappointed by this.
9/10
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