November 16, 2007 Film » Film Feature

"Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" 

by John Branston
click to enlarge Marisa Tomei
  • Marisa Tomei
Who saw this coming? Director Sidney Lumet got his start in television during the early days of the medium, graduating to film with such black-and-white message movies as Twelve Angry Men and Fail-Safe. He hit his stride in the '70s, helming the Paddy Chayefsky political potboiler Network and really making his mark with a series of New York stories: Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, Prince of the City.

Lumet has been consistently active since but hasn't made anything acknowledged as first-tier since 1982, with the Paul Newman legal drama/character study The Verdict. That was 25 years ago and Lumet, at 83, now seemed to be way past making films of that stature.

But then there's Lumet's latest film, his 45th, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, a provocatively titled heist flick/family melodrama starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke as Andy and Hank Hanson, a couple of unstable brothers who seek to solve their financial troubles by planning a robbery of their parents' suburban jewelry store.

Read the rest of Chris Herrington's review of Lumet's new film from this week's Flyer.

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