Sidney Lumet succeeds in affording Greek-tragic undertones to his crime movie.
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10/27/07
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)
88
%
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Reviews Counted:156
Fresh:137
Rotten:19
Average Rating:7.7/10
Consensus: A tense and effective thriller, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead marks a triumphant return to form for director Sidney Lumet.
Rated: 15 [See Full Rating]
Runtime: 2 hrs 3 mins
Genre: Family Interaction, Thriller, Infidelity, Theatrical Release, Brothers, Affairs
Theatrical Release:11-01-2008
Synopsis: From the unexpectedly graphic opening shot, director Sidney Lumet proves he hasn't lost any of his bite with age. BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD is a riveting suspense thriller that retains the... [More]
Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei, Albert Finney
Director: Sidney Lumet
Reviews for Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
It has been exactly 50 years since Sidney Lumet made his first movie but let's hope on the basis of this shattering edge-of-your-seat stuff that he hasn't made his last.
10/26/07
At 83 years-old, Lumet still manages to deliver this film in a captivating, edge-of-your-seat fashion.
10/26/07
I think you'll laugh a lot at what [Lumet] has wrought here -- but only well after the movie is over and the full scale of its perversity settles into your bones.
10/26/07
Top CriticIt revisits [Dog Day Afternoon's] claustrophobic suspense and deep compassion for its characters -- abject, grasping everymen who truly believe they're only one act of violence away from everything they've ever wanted.
10/26/07
The true star of this nerve-racking family crime drama, shot with a minimum of fuss by Ron Fortunato, is playwright and first-time screenwriter Kelly Masterson's deft script.
10/26/07
This flick is fast and ferocious, [Lumet's] sharpest and best since Prince of the City -- and surely one of the year's finest.
10/26/07
As deliberately provocative and in-your-face ugly as this film is, it still plays as second-rate Tarantino instead of first-rate Lumet.
10/26/07
Nothing in Lumet's filmography has contained the back alley, concrete-block pummeling of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, a masterful, rampaging descent into the quicksand hell of desperation.
10/26/07
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is a chronicle of destruction -- physical, spiritual and moral.
10/26/07
Top CriticLumet's movie is about people rather than jewels or guns. And, at 83, he knows a thing or two about people.
10/25/07
The skill of the movie comes in using its structure to peel away the outer layers of these people and to slowly reveal the depths of their psychological damage.
10/25/07
You get all the weight of dishonorable people and the choices they make and the added pounds of a more modern style that probably keeps a very good film from ranking with Lumet's classics.
10/25/07
Lumet hasn't been this energetic and perceptive since The Verdict, released two-and-a-half decades ago.
10/25/07
Lumet tackles this material like an old master, finding scenes to settle into and hanging out there longer than a younger director might.
10/25/07
To state it in the bluntest terms, Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is one of the great American films of the past decade, and the crowning masterpiece of Lumet's long career.
10/25/07
Family, and the core ideals that hold them in place, are blown to smithereens by the robbery at the ravaged heart of Sidney Lumet's scalding new thriller.
10/25/07
What you see in it says more about you than it says about Lumet and his straightforward, throwback-style entertainment, which is richly played and dazzlingly blinged up with sex and drugs, but virtually devoid of human insight or narrative ambition.
10/25/07
It's tough for a movie that starts out with a doggy-style sex scene in Rio to maintain momentum, and Before the Devil isn't nearly as carefully sculpted as Tomei.
10/25/07
The movie, however, belongs to Lumet: The fact that he’s produced such a vital work as an octogenarian is amazing enough, but the way this tragedy unfolds without a single false move puts the film among the best work of a very prestigious career.
10/25/07
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