I can't help but compare Before the Devil Knows You're Dead with the recent No Country for Old Men...

...one is the work of a consummate storyteller, the other the swagger of a pair of street braggarts.

This is a well told tale that draws on the viewer's own family ties. Don't ask, don't tell. It's a stark, sad, slice of an oh so possible tragedy.

And what about those four lead actors?!?!!! Albert Finney commands. Ethan Hawke concedes. Philip Seymour Hoffmann squirms and squirms and squirms. And lastly, Marisa Tomei embodies physicality -- WOW!!! -- she is the über-cougar, and deserves every Oscar® she ever receives.

Really "enjoyed" this film - - if you can call it that. It's a sad, slimy, sickening slide into full-on Hell.

Yeah, I enjoyed it.

EXCEPTIONAL.

Caught this one tonight. Have to say I was fairly disappointed all things considered. It isn't a bad movie by any means (in fact I may even call it a good one), but I can't for the life of me understand the ridiculous buzz around it. I guess because it's being shilled as Lumet's "return to form", it's being given a wider birth by critics than most movies. The first hour or so is a great heist movie - it's essentially a B-movie made with ample craft (although the moving back and forth through time stuff starts to become tiresome) - but it takes a strange, not so great turn when Albert Finney's character becomes heavily involved in the story. It starts to strive for poetic heights in crafting a Greek familial tragedy it simply can not hit. The characters morph into absurd caricatures of themselves, behaving in ways that are incomprehensible. Philip Seymour Hoffman becomes a serial killer, and Albert Finney becomes a bloodthirsty detective. The last section of the film actually serves the acting better, as it is pretty much over-acting heaven throughout the movie, so at least the hysterics begin to mesh. Ultimately, though the rail-jump the movie commits is pretty gross, it shouldn't (and doesn't) diminish the great stuff that came before.

Hey! That's my review for No Country For Old Men!!!

Am I living in Bizarroland?

No kidding? I saw it last night as well, Fox Tower at 10:20. Anyways I wasn't stunned, but I did think it was very fine filmmaking. The shifting chronlogy worked fine, but considering that it stopped around the last act, it didn't feel entirely nessecary. It was about the only time I could tell it was directed by someone who was 83. I do disagree about the character transformations.Albert Finney didn't bother me either, we didn't know much about him before he started to look for the other bank robbers and it's hardly a new reaction for grieving characters. I thought it was awesome how PSH became so bloodthirsty, I thought it was supposed to be him getting back at his brother in a twisted way.

Thanks for pretty much something things up for me.

Starts out with potential but it amounts to a something generic, almost silly. Lot's of lazy writing - especially with Tomei and Finney's characters. So many moments were certainly set up to be dramatic/profound/poignant (cue dramatic music!) but were by and large pretty hollow. The nonlinear story line wasn't necessarily annoying to me, but it didn't add anything. It was maybe a bit distracting in how silly and obtuse it was - especially during key dramatic moments.

The film looked sort of cheap, too...

Skip it.

**/****

Did I see the same film as HR?!

"Pungently atmospheric, brilliantly textured and featuring superb performances from every performer in parts big and small. "


Brilliantly textured? Superb performances? Atmospheric?! It looked like a generic '90's drama.

I agree with a lot of zen and makeshift's reviews. I can understand Lumet trying to make a movie about being pushed to a wrong decision and the remorse of it, but overall it didn't really work. I liked the film during most of Hawke's sections, including the robbery itself which is probably the highest mark in the film, but the rest, including Hoffman and Finney's depression and Tomei's whining, is melodrama that ultimately falls flat. There's no spark to this movie, no energy. I didn't hate the idea of structuring the narrative like he did, but for me it ended up hurting the film because every time it builds momentum in the storyline, it jumps backwards and it has to be built up again.

Oh, and I hated the last 20 minutes. Absolutely hated it. Over the top and disbelievable, and it had no emotional effect on me at all. And it even used the same shot as Million Dollar Baby.

With that said, it's still pretty well directed and all the acting is top notch, especially by Hawke. Tomei's... "looks" didn't hurt either.

I'm not raving though.

2/5

Actually the more I think about this movie, the more I hate it. Definitley one of the year's most overpraised or overrated films critically.

The ending doesn't really work, but I didn't think it was a complete disaster. What Finney's character does isn't that unbelievable compared to the events that lead up to it. But yes, it's rushed and a little sloppy.

Loved the first 3/4, though. Incredibly tight plotting and the time jumps worked for me.

Thought the ensemble was excellent, too. I saw the film a while ago, but Philip Seymour Hoffman's turn is still probably my favorite male lead performance of the year. Finney's also great in navigating the film's intense final moments.

B+

This was the biggest problem I had with this movie. It wasn't just tiresome, but absolutely unnecessary. I always hated it with the unnecessary style. Recently, I've watched 'Paranoid Park', and it has this kind of back-and-forth storytelling featured. BUT, it was great. It kind of makes sense of why its story has to be served with this kind of storytelling. While in 'Before the Devil Knows You're Dead', the back-and-forth storytelling simply didn't add anything to a movie.

I also found the story was unbelievable at some points. Maybe not 'unbelievable', it's between 'too contrived' and 'a bit loosen turn-out'.

BUT overall, it's undeniably a fine film-making. It's highly entertaining. It's never boring. It's a bit 'stoned-cold'. But that's just the way it could only be. The performances were good. With the exception of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was really really great. I found Ethan Hawke's performance to be a bit over-acting and annoying at times. But he's hot, so that's forgivable.

Technically, it's at the finest of film-making. It's brilliant-directed. The cinematography was great. The score was noticeably wonderful. A truly well-crafted film.

B+

Lumet shows that he still has a very strong directorial touch, and a very very strong cast (the only not-great performance was Marisa Tomei's, and she was still good) handles the darkness of its characters very well. Especially Philip Seymour Hoffman. He really deserved an Oscar nod for this, and if it weren't for his other two films getting more attention, that could've happened. He's definitely one of the best working actors you'll find, as long as he finds a role that suits his on-screen persona. The only thing that bugged me at all was how the ending jumped a little off the deep end, but it was still a fitting way to end the movie.

A

I remember being kind of repulsed by how cheap this film looked, actually.

I must've been smoking that afternoon.

I'm surprised by the reception it's gotten here. I thought it was one of last year's best movies. It's a very dark and hateful thriller that crawls under your skin until the final frame (over the top as the ending was). The acting is top-notch, with Philip Seymour Hoffman doing his best work in a very good 2007. Albert Finney was also great here as the grieving father turned vigilante. Ethan Hawke and Marisa Tomei also offered solid support. The script is superbly written, boasting several scenes of high emotional potency. Unlike people elsewhere, I also really liked the decision to tell the story out of sequence. It revealed the layers of the story in a way that resonated more with me than a traditional approach. The ending gets a little too crazy, which is all that stops it from going higher in my book. But it's one of those movies I don't have much interest in watching again because it's like the cinematic equivalent of a dementor from Harry Potter, but that doesn't detract at all from the overpowering and masterful achievement Sidney Lumet has pulled off.

Grade: A-

The part of that quote that I found wrong was the score part, actually. I felt like scenes that should've been done without any music were killed by some cheap strings composition. The film was all about the realism of the situation, so music wasn't necessary.

A proper movie with an outstanding cast and an offbeat story structure. Only the middle part exibits some shortcomings and it drags on a bit, most of the highlights occur in the end of the movie. Unfortunately a few questions remain unexplained, an end without an end, which I sensed as unept.

B-

It was a little slow, but completely captivating. The ending was epic.


B+

mad props to marisa tomei's boobies