 | STARRING: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke RELEASE DATE: 10/26/2007 The Verdict |
A famous Irish toast, "May you be in heaven half an hour before the Devil knows you're dead", serves as the inspiration for the film Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. Oscar winning actors Philip Seymour Hoffman and Marisa Tomei, team with Ethan Hawke in this drama that has been on the Film Festival circuit since early September.
The robbery of a “mom & pop” jewelry store turns out to literally be the robbery of mom and pop’s jewelry store. Two brothers, Andy (Seymour Hoffman) and Hank (Ethan Hawke), are desperate for money and plan the robbery of their parent’s jewelry store. Andy is the mastermind, and Hank was supposed to carry out the robbery. Nobody was supposed to get hurt, and the jewels were all covered by insurance. Things don’t go according to plan when Hank enlists the help of a local thug with a gun. Two people end up dead and Andy & Hank are left to try and clean up the mess left behind. Actually, Hank is so distraught that the cover-up falls mostly in Andy’s lap.
The plot does not unfold in a linear fashion. The film starts out with the robbery, but then we go back and see the days leading up to the robbery, from both Andy and Hank’s point of view. Then the aftermath of the robbery is seen from Andy, Hank, and each of their parent’s points of view. Through the different frames of reference we watch a family drama unfold along with the main plot. Andy is dealing with a drug problem, hates his dad, and can’t please his wife (Marisa Tomei). Hank is having problems of his own with his “baby mamma”, and is sleeping with his brother’s wife weekly.
I enjoyed seeing the plot unfold from each character’s standpoint. I liked the story of how the brothers got to the point of the robbery. As an added bonus, Marisa Tomei is naked for most of the first half of the movie. She looks better than ever. The sex scenes and scenes of drug use are extremely explicit. I don’t know how the movie managed an ‘R’ rating. The acting was average, not at the level you would expect from Oscar winners.
The problem is that the way things spiral out of control after the robbery is completely ridiculous. It’s like the writers ran out of ideas and just decided to throw in some blackmail and a shootings to add some excitement. What started out good, ended in disappointment. You end up watching a family drama that you don’t care about because the family is full of mean and evil people. I guess that’s what makes the title appropriate, but that doesn’t make for a good moviegoing experience. The film just gets worse and more depressing as it goes on and on. Wait for cable, unless you always wanted to see Marisa naked.
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