Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)

Review:

Not since “Oldboy” (2003) have I seen a film that so thoroughly resonates with the underpinnings of Greek tragedy. I don’t think most films are daring enough to get involved in the melodramatics fundamental to Greek Tragedy but Sidney Lumet’s “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” goes the distance.

Philip Seymore Hoffman plays Andy Hanson, a well-to-do payroll clerk at a real estate business. Andy has a bad drug habit, a rocky marriage with his wife Gina (Marisa Tomei), and a habit of embezzling money from his company. When it is announced a company audit will be given, Andy realizes he is in dire need of money.

Andy’s younger brother Hank (Ethan Hawke) is a divorcee who is struggling to make his child support payments. He is essentially a good guy and tries his best to be a good father but he always seems to be coming up short. Hank needs some money too.

Andy proposes an idea to Hank to solve both their financial woes. They will plan and execute a heist of a jewelry store, a real “mom and pop operation.” How literal a mom and pop operation they plan to rob I will leave you to discover. Suffice it to say, the robbery does not go as planned. Things go very, very wrong.

Soon Hank and Andy’s father Charles (Albert Finney) becomes entangled in the fallout from the robbery and from that point onward the story takes on the Greek tragic proportions. As I watched this movie unfold I couldn’t help but think of my old friends Oedipus and Elektra, Antigone and Orestes.

Philip Seymore Hoffman and Finney provide the emotional center of the film. Their performances are grand but never unbelievable. Hoffman is especially good. He portrays Andy in a light that is very hard to capture – a villain who is only one small step away from being a sympathetic character. Andy is a terrible man but I don’t think he is inherently an evil entity like Hannibal Lecter or Anton Chigurh. His deep insecurities have robbed him of a true sense of self. It is made clear in one very poignant scene that Andy has never been comfortable with who he is or his place within his family. We realize this is what has driven him to such desperate ends.

There is yet another potent scene where Andy despondently tears apart a room after his wife leaves. This scene cannot be anything but a reference to “Citizen Kane” (1941) and like with Charles Foster Kane, I came away from this film deploring Andy’s actions but understanding exactly why he did them.

Rating:

On a scale of one to Casablanca, this film is an “All the Presidents Men” (1976).

Rationalization:

You never know what you can do until you put your mind to it. Alternatively, you never know what you can’t do until you try to do it. “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” is not a typical crime thriller because the heist itself seems secondary to the aftermath. It fails within the first ten minutes of the film. In this way, “Before the Devil” can be compared to “Reservoir Dogs” (1992), another film about the messy consequences of a failed robbery. But unlike “Reservoir Dogs,” the primary concern of “Before the Devil” is family and if it can survive with a horrible elephant in the room.