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You'd think Sidney Lumet, at 83, might direct something wise and pastoral, expressing the radiance of his golden years and lifting the weight of the world. Hardly. The helmer of Dog Day Afternoon and Network puts more angry bodies in violent motion in the contorted, engrossing thriller Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.
Title aside, Satan might already have full knowledge of the scheme that brothers Andy and Hank have hatched. Played by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke, they devise a sure—thing jewelry—store heist that will barely affect the sweet, doddering owners, who are fully insured. What the elderly couple (Albert Finney and Rosemary Harris) have no protection against is that it's their own two sons who organize—and bungle—this perfect crime.
There is not a single clunking performance among the determinedly anxious cast members. Marisa Tomei provides a glorious eyeful to alleviate the gloom and the soundtrack provides moments of sunshine on the cloudiest day. The sins of the brothers soon intersect with the sins of the father in this shadowy saga, which slithers through the Diamond District's dank hallways, the glass—and—steel aerie of an uptown heroin dealer, and the leafy burgs of Westchester County. Lumet's lesson seems centered on Manhattan, where strivers will perform any ruthless act to get ahead and other desperate souls are merely criminal associates from whom the main culprits quickly, clumsily disassociate themselves.
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