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Summary Andy, an overextended broker, lures his younger brother--Hank--into a larcenous scheme: the pair will rob a suburban mom-and-pop jewelry store that appears to be the quintessential easy target. The problem is, the store owners are Andy and Hank's actual mom and pop--and--when the seemingly perfect crime goes awry, the damage lands right ...
Directed By: Sidney Lumet
Written By: Kelly Masterson
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
7.5
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Summary Andy, an overextended broker, lures his younger brother--Hank--into a larcenous scheme: the pair will rob a suburban mom-and-pop jewelry store that appears to be the quintessential easy target. The problem is, the store owners are Andy and Hank's actual mom and pop--and--when the seemingly perfect crime goes awry, the damage lands right ...
Directed By: Sidney Lumet
Written By: Kelly Masterson
Where to Watch
Coming Soon
Not available in your country?
ExpressVPN
Get 3 Extra months free
$6.67/mth
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim Based on 37 Critic Reviews
86
92% Positive
34 Reviews
34 Reviews
8% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim Based on 37 Critic Reviews
86
92% Positive
34 Reviews
34 Reviews
8% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Compact, nasty, and altogether wonderful, a tale of brotherly greed and New York comeuppance that shows an old dog dusting off old tricks using new technology.
Offers the rare pleasure of watching a major director return to his own material and rework it 30 years later. This story of a pitiful jewel heist gone so profoundly wrong that it approaches the scope of Greek tragedy isn't quite a remake of "Dog Day Afternoon."
User Score
Generally Favorable Based on 124 User Ratings
7.5
80% Positive
99 Ratings
99 Ratings
17% Mixed
21 Ratings
21 Ratings
3% Negative
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable Based on 124 User Ratings
7.5
80% Positive
99 Ratings
99 Ratings
17% Mixed
21 Ratings
21 Ratings
3% Negative
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
Mar 26, 2011
What a superb film! Incredibly inpactful and thrilling. Great performances all around, with a beautiful score and amazing writing to go hand in hand with the Sidney Lumet touch. How this film was snubbed for not even a single Oscar nomination, I will never understand. Michael Shannon and Albert Finney bring such great energy and power; Hoffman and Hawke really express the confusion in the **** that takes place. The melodramatic performances rarely seem over done because the thrill is amped up to 14. This film physically punched me in the face: no ****
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Oct 23, 2021
How many bad things can come out when you want to get money fast and easy? Many. The story unfolds in an agile and compelling way, and with a cataclysmic ending. To see without fail.
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His [Sidney Lumet] touch in Before the Devil is so sure, so perfectly weighted, that it’s hard to imagine him capable of making a bad movie. The thing is just enthralling.
Pungently atmospheric, brilliantly textured and featuring superb performances from every performer in parts big and small.
What you’re left with, finally, is the pleasure of a wily director’s company. In much the same way John Huston defied convention and predictability in the third act of his directorial career, with films as odd and fresh as “Wise Blood” and “Prizzi’s Honor,” Lumet is doing the same, right now.
The evident strengths and laudable intentions of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (and even the appeal of Marisa Tomei in her undies) are overwhelmed by an implausible plot verging on unintentional comedy and a panoply of Noo Yawk dirt-bag supporting characters who might've seemed awkward on a 1993 episode of "NYPD Blue."
Feb 12, 2024
it had potential but it felt boring and long, While I enjoy the narrative of the story, I have to say that this movie's style is all wrong. The jumping back and forth in time structure makes it feel all over the place and, indeed, that it's a mess. It would have been much better if it had played out completely linear. The look is cold, the style holds you back from the action. The direction is one of my least favorite things about the film,
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Jul 1, 2016
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is an undeniably well acted and well made film. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, and Marisa Tomei's boobs (probably the leader for screentime), all turn in great performances. The film is also a phenomenal look at a broken family led to the point of desperation to lift themselves up, but winds up tearing them apart even more. As a crime thriller, it is solid and wholly entertaining. However, the film undoes itself with its non-linear structure. Annoying and useless in this film, the non-linear storytelling distracts more than it entertains. Even worse, the way in which it is told makes no sense with it jumping all over the place with little aim. The thrills the film could have produced are killed through the same means as the film's climactic parts come far too early to actually carry any weight. After this, we are stuck watching these people we do not like come to grips with what happened and reveal more dealing with it, but since we know how it turned out, it all feels pointless because then we can assume how they will all react to the results. There is tension, merely predictability. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead presents good acting, but shoots itself in the face repeatedly with its curious use of non-linear storytelling.
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Apr 4, 2013
This film is about 2 brothers Andy and Hank (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke respectively) who plot to rob their parents jewellery store. The robbery is initially told from 2 perspectives for both brothers and later we get a third perspective of the robbery through their father Charles (played by Albert Finney). I thought the film started off well as the robbery unfolds and we start to see the brother's motivations behind the robbery. The trouble is that once we get past the initial premise, the film begins to become repetitive and a bit tedious. The second half of the film was just filled with squabbling and melodrama and never really seemed to go anywhere by this point I was getting pretty bored with the film. I was ultimately disappointed with this film which is a shame as it started out well and ended up being only an average film at best.
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Nov 10, 2020
There’s a film making device that not even the sometimes overrated Kubrick could make work (IE; check out his heist movie: ‘The Killing’) It’s the tired old flashback device of repeating the same scene over from several viewpoints, even when it’s totally pointless (as it is here). First-time writer Kelly Masterson and veteran director Sidney Lumet must have felt everyone will have forgotten that padded-out earlier old flick, thinking they could get away with ‘borrowing’ the idea for their dreary heist movie. This one is a ‘doozy’ and should please those who live their lives thinking the best time of year is the bleak mid-winter - during a power failure and severe food shortage. Writer and director must have been so aware of their over-stretched plot, that they may have thought (wrongly) by starting their movie with a sensationalised, voyeuristic porno type shot, featuring two of their stars rear-end copulating - will shock jaded viewers into thinking it exciting and modern. Trouble is, the whole thing is sleazily set up and ultimately unappealing. Pity the poor 40ish Marisa Tomei (even though she looks very good) is shown in 80% of her scenes more than half naked – talk about used and abused. Lumet would have been better to have retired before he was reduced to ending his career at this merge point. A strong hard-working cast delivers their distraught lines with conviction - while given situations that just about defies any close examination by intelligent audiences. The pathetic characters that inhabit this story are just too difficult to feel anything for. I’m not going to give away any plot details here but it’s this depressingly overstated type of movie making that appeals to festival in-crowds and certain critics. It’s also a reminder, for those who have forgotten what great classic writing used to do with genuine human tragedy. Here, it’s shredded and reduced to pathetic characters and ridiculously laboured situations - designed to manipulate the audience into thinking it way far better than it is (some will – many won't)
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Awards
Satellite Awards
• 1 Win & 4 Nominations
Houston Film Critics Society Awards
• 3 Nominations
New York Film Critics, Online
• 2 Wins & 2 Nominations
