Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

NEW YORK (CNS) -- We were indifferent to "Find Me Guilty," last year's offering from veteran director Sidney Lumet which starred Vin Diesel as a mobster conducting his own defense in court.

But "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" (ThinkFilm) -- the title derived from the Irish toast that begins, "May you be in heaven half an hour ... " -- is a different story. This grimly powerful and hypnotic melodrama about a robbery that goes horribly awry also has a stronger moral compass than its predecessor.

The narrative unfolds at such a deliberate, moderate pace, with every revelation a surprise, that it's difficult to say much about the plot without giving anything away, except that it charts the tragic after-effects of the crime on two brothers and everyone else involved.

Hank (Ethan Hawke) is in financial trouble, a divorced man unable to keep up with his child support, as his nagging ex-wife, Martha (Amy Ryan), reminds him at every turn. Slick sibling Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a frazzled broker, suggests a robbery, but won't reveal the details until Hank says he's on board, after which there will be no backing out.

After assessing his financially strapped condition, Hank reluctantly agrees, only to learn that what Andy has in mind is a holdup of the shopping mall jewelry store owned by their parents. The older woman who runs the store will be a pushover. They'll get the gems, their folks -- who, of course, know nothing of the scheme -- will get the insurance money. Everyone wins.

Hank doesn't think he has the chops to pull off the heist solo, despite Andy's smooth assurances of how "easy" it will be, so Hank entreats his ne'er-do-well friend, Bobby (Brian F. O'Byrne), to help, the first misstep in a scenario that brings them, their parents and everyone around them to ruin, much like a Greek tragedy. Indeed, Lumet imbues the film with a mood of inexorable doom.

Lumet has lost none of his prowess, and he has the narrative methodically but grippingly unfold, as it leaps back and forth in time.

Hoffman and Hawke are phenomenally good, the former unabashedly unlikable, the latter frantically pathetic, each convincingly desperate for different reasons. But all the performances, including those of Albert Finney as their vengeance-seeking father, Rosemary Harris, Alexis Palladino, and Michael Shannon, are first-rate.

The film will not be to every taste. The expletive quotient is high, the violence -- when it occurs -- is brutal if not gratuitous, and there are a couple of sexual encounters that while graphic are as pointedly and dramatically justified as such scenes can ever be, including the shadowy sex act between Andy and his wife, Gina (Marisa Tomei), which opens the film and demonstrates the nature of their failing marriage.

But, above all, it's a perceptive story of a dysfunctional family, with sibling rivalry at its core. Every character behaves badly from a moral point of view. Unlike so many films, however, these characters seem to know it.

The film is as downright ugly as the sins it dramatizes so effectively, but this "anatomy of a robbery" is masterfully done, and the characters' actions, however heinous, are never trivialized. Kelly Masterson's involving script glorifies nothing.

The film contains graphic violence and murder, vengeance, two sexual encounters with rear male and upper female nudity, pervasive rough and crude language, profanity, adultery, frank sexual talk and drug use. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

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Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops