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Home » Culture and Criticism

Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead

Submitted by on July 29, 2008 – 10:51 PM6 Comments

A much better movie than I’d expected — I’d kind of anticipated something more precious, or that it would go for a quirkier, funnier tone, and it’s so much better for not having done that.

It’s bleak, for sure, and a lot of the typical resolutions you’d expect from a movie with that plot never arrive, but it’s a good thing here; it takes you to these icky, desperate places and then leaves you there instead of bending over backwards to end on an up note.

Top performances from the whole cast, too; I hadn’t seen the film by the time Oscar nominations came out, but in retrospect, Philip Seymour Hoffman got overlooked in the Andy role.It’s “typical” Hoffman — kinda fratty, kinda nasty, kinda familiar — and yet it’s not, because the script is uncompromising about the character, but without blowing him off as a douchebag.Hawke’s role, same thing, and Ethan Hawke as a person (and as An Author, oh please) is annoying to me, so I forget that he’s really pretty good at acting.

A lot of Sidney Lumet’s work gives me a headache — if I never have to hear Network over-praised again, it will be too soon — but aside from that one passé shot choice at the end, he did everything right.Good framing, good tension, he gets away with the Rashomon chopping-up, and you spend the movie feeling like you’re in the room with these guys.

Good show from everyone.I remember it getting very good reviews at the time, but it seems like not a lot of people saw it.

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6 Comments »

  • Jen S says:

    Hurrah, someone else finally saw this! I loved this film and couldn’t get anyone else to watch it. The relationships between all the characters are so tangled and yet so normal–it’s not one of those Sam Shepard Incest-Is-Best psychodramas, just a family that quietly bled each other until something had to give.

    Speaking of award noms, Amy Madigan really got screwed. Here and in Gone Baby Gone, which came out about the same time, she plays two really hard roles, thankless for actresses in that the characters aren’t redeemed or repentant at the end. The scene at Ethan Hawke’s daughter’s recital where she asks for money to go see The Lion King, and Amy just gives him that smile? Worth an Oscar, right there.

    And Marisa Tomei’s boobs are amazing.

  • attica says:

    I found PSH’s work here, with a pretty hard-to-like character, to be really interesting.

    Hawke, on the other hand, still won’t wash his hair, and I don’t see how I can (or should) get past that to enjoy any acting he does. I didn’t expect him to go so far with the weakness in that character, so I suppose I should give him points for that. But: Hair, not washed.

    I also had a lot of fun recognizing some of the locations they used as being in neighborhoods in which I lived. That gas station? Around the corner from my house! Eep!

    I liked the muscular nature of the direction. The material could have easily gone way over the top, but Lumet kept it tight.

  • Karen says:

    I’m not a huge Hawke fan–I have a hard time accepting that he’s a Hollywood movie star, frankly, when he looks like he belongs in the back row at Comic-Con–but damn I loved this movie. PSH never fails me, of course, but the whole cast was just so damn ON. And the story is so well plotted; I don’t think I breathed after the first 15 or 20 minutes. It’s one of the best exemplars of a total clusterfuck I’ve ever seen.

  • Kyle says:

    Jen S.:

    I think you mean Amy Ryan, also of The Wire and lately, The Office.

    She was nominated for an Oscar for Gone Baby Gone.

    Amy Madigan was in Gone Baby Gone, but not this.

  • Carol Elaine says:

    Just added to my Netflix queue. Thank you, Sars.

  • Meredith says:

    @ attica: I feel you on the hair thing. How hard is it to wash the hair?

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