Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is Great (Right?)

Let me start by saying that Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is an excellent film. It’s superbly written, superbly acted, and superbly directed. I start with this disclaimer of sorts, because, like most Sydney Lumet films, I walked out of the theater logically justifying its greatness, while feeling in my gut that it was ultimately innocuous. As with most emotions we come across in life, there is a rational and an irrational response. Usually, we can look at our feelings, be they love, anger, hatred, or envy and, if we possess an adequate amount of emotional maturity, decide how much of our emotions are irrational. From there, we can make a mature decision for how to proceed. It is with this in mind that I tell you, rationally, that Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is a fine film of the highest caliber.
Unfortunately, films, like the human spirit, don’t solely operate on the rational or the logical. And even while every character in this film about a robbery gone wrong acted without that rationality governor, I too find myself trying to maneuver around the film’s inescapable, seemingly irrational, nagging disappointment. Disappointed at not being on the edge of my seat. Disappointed at actually wondering when the film would end. Disappointed at not caring. And I felt the same way the first time I saw Dog Day Afternoon. So if you loved that movie, then don’t listen to me. You’ll probably love Before the Devil Knows You’re dead. It is a great film.

I think one of my problems was that Sydney ratcheted up the intensity level to a solid 9 right out of the door and never let up. So after about an hour of being at a steady 9, I grew tired and a little numb. The story starts with a jewelry store robbery that goes horribly wrong. From there, we look at every character involved in the robbery in a haltingly non-linear narrative, going back in time to see every angle leading up to the robbery. Eventually we see all the angles of the aftermath as well. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke play middle-aged fucked-up brothers, each in need of money, and each sharing the same, perpetually nude, and surprisingly stunning Marissa Tomei, who plays Hoffman's wife. Women her age shouldn’t look so good. It’s unfair to everyone else. Hoffman and Hawke are actually convincing as brothers, despite their rather stark differing physical appearance, and that, I think, is a testament to their acting, as well as the casting of mother, small, svelte Rosemary Harris, and father, the wonderful, puffier Albert Finney. While the story starts with a jewelry store robbery, and uses this robbery as the narrative structure, the film is about the destruction of a suburban American family. Not the American Beauty brand of destruction – think more like Hamlet style destruction. Homicide. Patricide. Matricide. Fratricide. If it has a “-cide” it’s not only possible in Lumet’s 44th(ish) film, it’s likely. Every scene is packed so tightly with emotional intensity – Hoffman turns out yet another stunning performance, as if we should expect anything less at this point, and Finney’s performance, the heart of which doesn’t come until halfway through the movie, is so heartbreakingly devastating you practically want to rip your own heart out and give it to him – that by the time we get to the film’s bloody denouement, my nerves were frayed. I was worn out.

Without the rather complex structure, there might not be a film. At least, not nearly as interesting a film. Reminiscent of the structure of Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, the result of taking us back in time to learn each character’s own unique cause to their combined effect made for a powerfully nuanced story. Unlike a film that might start with a big event then rush back to the past to show how we got to this point, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is about the characters, not the event. By using this form, Lumet, along with writer Kelly Masterson, do a magnificent job of juggling this layer cake story and extracting from every character, everything he or she’s worth. It also makes the film seem rather long. It seemed like every time the story was picking up momentum, we’d be whisked back in time to watch another character come to the same point, move a little beyond it, and then we’d switch again. It was the difference of taking city streets to taking the highway. There’s definitely more to look at if you don’t mind stopping at all those stop lights and getting to your destination about a half hour later. At 2 hours and 3 minutes, the film isn’t inordinately long, rationally speaking. It just feels that way.

And that’s really what it comes down to. I could argue the merits of this film for days, hours at least, but I probably wouldn’t be too invested in that argument. In any case, it really was great to see an excellent film built on nothing but writing, acting, and directing. There was nothing flashy, nothing grandiose. No feats of cinematography. No extravagant sets. Even the transitions were implemented with simple, rudimentary flash cuts. The kind a film student could make on a cutting board with tape and a razor blade. Function over form – words to live by in almost every endeavor. The form never took on the role of spectacle precisely because the story never called for it. That’s the sign of a true master.

There I go again. Arguing its merits. What can I do?