Brothers Ethan Hawke (l) and Phillip Seymour Hoffman aren’t much for ‘honouring thy father and thy mother’
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead has the good fortune of pairing a legendary thriller director with a heavyweight cast. You can almost hear that booming trailer voice exclaim “Academy Award-winner Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Academy Award-winner Albert Finney and Academy Award-winner Marisa Tomei star in a caper about greed, lust and ambition from master filmmaker Sidney Lumet.” Even the inclusion of Ethan Hawke doesn’t detract from the award-winning pedigree of the film. So why is Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead such a snooze?
Told in a fractured narrative in which chronology is all about perspective, the film follows two desperate brothers who embark on a life of crime. Andy (Hoffman) has an unsatisfied wife (Tomei), and a drug problem and needs some extra cash. Hank (Hawke) is a deadbeat dad stuck in a spiral of debt. They set out to knock off a suburban mom-and-pop jewelry store, the twist being that it belongs to their own mom and pop. Things go bad, mommy dearest winds up comatose and the boys get nervous when dad (Finney) starts looking for answers.
Caper flicks of late have had the distinction of being flashy, fast-paced affairs, but given Lumet’s track record, you know from the get-go that won’t be the case here. Best known for cerebral, character-driven pieces like 12 Angry Men and Dog Day Afternoon, he’s the kind of director who takes time to tell a story. Sadly, this is to the film’s detriment. Even with non-linear storytelling, which always artificially quickens a film’s pacing, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead crawls at a snail’s pace. At two hours, it’s easily a half-hour too long.
This wouldn’t be so distressing if the film had strong performances to fall back on. Finney, as usual, smolders with effortless intensity, but the rest of the players can hardly keep up. Hawke is laughably bad in his one-note performance. Hoffman is passable in the first half, but midway through, his character’s behaviour becomes so erratic that there is nothing he can do to make it work. Tomei delivers a surprisingly effective performance. However, she inexplicably spends most of her screen time in various states of undress, which distracts audiences not only from her acting, but, indeed, the film in general.
By the time the film comes crashing to its inevitably desperate conclusion, the characters have strayed so far off course that it’s almost impossible to stay interested. Even though everyone finally gets what’s coming to them, it is the audience that is punished most of all.
