Hank (Ethan Hawke, left) and Andy Hanson (Philip Seymour Hoffman) are brothers involved in a botched robbery in Sidney Lumet's film Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. (Mongrel Media)
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is a film that pokes — actually, gouges — the eye of the phrase “family values.” The eldest brother of the supra-dysfunctional Hanson family, Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman), is an oily, puff-fish accountant who’s on the edge of getting nailed for embezzlement. He enlists his dimmer little brother, Hank (Ethan Hawke), in a scheme to pull them both out of their respective financial straits: They’ll rob a suburban mom-and-pop jewelry store.
The twist is that the mom and pop are Andy and Hank’s mom (Rosemary Harris) and pop (Albert Finney). But don’t worry “your f-----y little conscience,” Andy assures his brother, as it’s a “victimless crime,” because the folks will get their insurance money. Hoffman does beautiful, difficult work here, making Andy at once clueless and arrogant, utterly unsympathetic and achingly alone. It’s rare to see such an opaque character own a film.
Andy needs to feed his drug habit and his Betty Boop wife (Marisa Tomei), who, by the way, is sleeping with Hank. Hank’s wormy little moustache announces a life of low expectations, and he initially resists Andy’s plan, but soon, he gets diamonds in his eyes. New York lies outside bedroom and office windows, all skyscrapers and money, just within grasp. (Both men work in real estate, the quick-fix fantasy of modern times.) Hank dares to picture a life beyond alimony payments and the daily ridicule doled out by his ex-wife (Amy Ryan). Loser #2 is in.
Handling this squirmy, volatile set-up with a light touch is Sidney Lumet, venerable director of Serpico, Network and Dog Day Afternoon; best to skim the sections of his CV that read The Wiz and A Stranger Among Us. (In the latter, Melanie Griffith goes undercover as a Hasidic Jew. Not good.) At 83, Lumet shows more energy and intelligence than most of the Tarantino wannabes out there, who would have gone hipster on this understated script.
As a director, Lumet has always been a bit of a functionary, but with Devil, he’s a raucous pirate, gleefully splicing the timeline and wringing fantastic performances from his actors. Lumet is famously an actor’s director; he made Brando and Hepburn excellent, but that’s easy compared to making Vin Diesel passable (in the little-seen courtroom drama Find Me Guilty. Not great.)
At every turn in the Hanson brothers’ plan, something goes wrong, and then Andy comes up with another idea, guaranteed to make things worse. When Hank realizes that the robbery has turned sour, Hawke is phenomenal, a ball of shock and disbelief caterwauling while the getaway car screeches out of the parking lot.
Hank’s feebleness is underlined when later, as the lies are bearing down, he storms out of his father’s living room. “He’s always been such a baby,” says the senior Hanson, and the son’s entire mediocre life comes into focus.
These short, tell-all lines are everywhere in the masterful screenplay by newcomer Kelly Masterson. The family DNA is linked by revenge and entitlement that traces back to the gruff, reticent patriarch. Papa Hanson can’t get the cops to hurry along their investigation of the botched robbery, so he simply backs up his Oldsmobile in a parking lot and rams a police car. These out-of-nowhere, tar-black moments are the film’s funny, awful signature. Instead of delivering yet another heist movie, Lumet shoves his film down the slippery slope from a grey moral zone into the void, and it’s a glorious ride.
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead opens Nov. 16 in Toronto, Nov. 23 in Vancouver and Nov. 30 in other Canadian cities.
Katrina Onstad writes about the arts for CBCnews.ca.
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