- PRIMAL FEAR 16.6 (BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS...)
Master filmmaker Sidney Lumet directs this absorbing suspense thriller about a family facing the worst enemy of all itself. Oscar®-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Andy, an overextended broker who lures his younger brother, Hank (Ethan Hawke) 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 at their doorstep. Oscar-winner Marisa Tomei plays Andy s trophy wife, who is having a clandestine affair with Hank. The stellar cast also includes Albert Finney as the family patriarch who pursues justice at all costs, completely unaware that the culprits he is hunting are his own sons. A classy, classic heist-gone-wrong drama in the t! radition of The Killing and Lumet s own The Anderson Tapes, BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOW YOU RE DEAD is smart enough to know that we often have the most to fear from those who are near and dear.Sidney Lumet’s
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is an exceptionally dark story about a crime gone wrong and the complicated reasons behind it. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke are outstanding as brothers whose mutual love-hate relationship subtly colors their agreement to rob their own parents’ jewelry store, and more explicitly affects the anxious aftermath of their villainy when their mother (Rosemary Harris) ends up shot. Hoffman’s steely, emotionally locked-up Andy, despite pulling down six figures as a corporate executive, is supporting an expensive drug habit while trying to leave the country with his depressed wife, Gina (Marisa Tomei). Hank (Hawke), a whipped dog of low intelligence, owes back alimony and child support to his ex-spouse. Both men need money and! agree to rip off their parents' business, a decision that goe! s awry a nd puts both men in various kinds of jeopardy while their mother remains comatose and their father (Albert Finney) lurches along trying to make sense of anything. Writer Kelly Masterson's screenplay employs a perhaps now-overly-familiar time-shifting tactic, jumping around the chronology of the story's events and replaying scenes from different vantage points. The effect is a little tedious but successfully deconstructs the film's drama in a way that shows how such terrible events are directly linked to family dysfunction, old wounds between parent and child, between siblings, that fester into full-blown tragedy. Eighty-three-year-old director Lumet (
Serpico) employs bleached colors and scenes of blunt sexuality and violence, adding to the moral rudderlessness and banality of this airless world. If
Devil feels a little reductive and insistently grim, it is also a generally persuasive work by an old master.
--Tom KeoghMaster filmmaker Sidney Lumet directs! this absorbing suspense thriller about a family facing the worst enemy of all itself. Oscar®-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Andy, an overextended broker who lures his younger brother, Hank (Ethan Hawke) 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 at their doorstep. Oscar-winner Marisa Tomei plays Andy s trophy wife, who is having a clandestine affair with Hank. The stellar cast also includes Albert Finney as the family patriarch who pursues justice at all costs, completely unaware that the culprits he is hunting are his own sons. A classy, classic heist-gone-wrong drama in the tradition of The Killing and Lumet s own The Anderson Tapes, BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOW YOU RE DEAD is smart enough to know that we often have the most to fear from those ! who are near and dear.Sidney Lumet’s
Before the Devil Kno! ws You†™re Dead is an exceptionally dark story about a crime gone wrong and the complicated reasons behind it. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke are outstanding as brothers whose mutual love-hate relationship subtly colors their agreement to rob their own parents’ jewelry store, and more explicitly affects the anxious aftermath of their villainy when their mother (Rosemary Harris) ends up shot. Hoffman’s steely, emotionally locked-up Andy, despite pulling down six figures as a corporate executive, is supporting an expensive drug habit while trying to leave the country with his depressed wife, Gina (Marisa Tomei). Hank (Hawke), a whipped dog of low intelligence, owes back alimony and child support to his ex-spouse. Both men need money and agree to rip off their parents' business, a decision that goes awry and puts both men in various kinds of jeopardy while their mother remains comatose and their father (Albert Finney) lurches along trying to make sense of anything. Wri! ter Kelly Masterson's screenplay employs a perhaps now-overly-familiar time-shifting tactic, jumping around the chronology of the story's events and replaying scenes from different vantage points. The effect is a little tedious but successfully deconstructs the film's drama in a way that shows how such terrible events are directly linked to family dysfunction, old wounds between parent and child, between siblings, that fester into full-blown tragedy. Eighty-three-year-old director Lumet (
Serpico) employs bleached colors and scenes of blunt sexuality and violence, adding to the moral rudderlessness and banality of this airless world. If
Devil feels a little reductive and insistently grim, it is also a generally persuasive work by an old master.
--Tom Keogh In the full-throttle, noir-soaked tradition of Dennis Lehane and Michael Connelly, the acclaimed young author of Bad Connection unleashes an ambitious and edgy new thriller pulsating with raw! , urban energy.
Decorated NYPD Officer John Coglin always ! thought his picture on the front page of the newspaper would be one for the scrapbook.
That was before he had the bad luck to be forced into a witness-free, kill-or-be-killed confrontation with a drug-dealing thug. It's of no help to him that the incident took place during the run-up to a bitter mayoral election campaign, and that his adversary was sixteen years old and black.
Now, instead of another commendation, Coglin is staring down the barrel of a media- and politics-stoked murder rap.
But on the eve of his sure conviction arrives a fateful telephone call.
It's not the governor, but his long-lost uncle, Aidan O'Connell.
A veteran of the IRA and a recently released guest of San Quentin Penitentiary for armed-to-the-teeth robbery, Aidan offers his nephew a pardon that has nothing to do with lawyers.
Coglin is about to find out that the type of amnesty Uncle Aidan is proposing is the kind that involves a beautiful but dangerous Mafia widow, a car trunk full! of M-16s, and thirty million dollars in jewels smack dab in the middle of Rockefeller Center.
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is a highly entertaining, deliciously gritty, super-fast thriller that takes us on a cutthroat ride into an urban realm where criminal intent collides head-on with the vagaries of fate and the inscrutabilities of the human heart.In the full-throttle, noir-soaked tradition of Dennis Lehane and Michael Connelly, the acclaimed young author of Bad Connection unleashes an ambitious and edgy new thriller pulsating with raw, urban energy.
Decorated NYPD Officer John Coglin always thought his picture on the front page of the newspaper would be one for the scrapbook.
That was before he had the bad luck to be forced into a witness-free, kill-or-be-killed confrontation with a drug-dealing thug. It's of no help to him that the incident took place during the run-up to a bitter mayoral election campaign, and that his adversary was six! teen years old and black.
Now, instead of another commenda! tion, Co glin is staring down the barrel of a media- and politics-stoked murder rap.
But on the eve of his sure conviction arrives a fateful telephone call.
It's not the governor, but his long-lost uncle, Aidan O'Connell.
A veteran of the IRA and a recently released guest of San Quentin Penitentiary for armed-to-the-teeth robbery, Aidan offers his nephew a pardon that has nothing to do with lawyers.
Coglin is about to find out that the type of amnesty Uncle Aidan is proposing is the kind that involves a beautiful but dangerous Mafia widow, a car trunk full of M-16s, and thirty million dollars in jewels smack dab in the middle of Rockefeller Center.
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is a highly entertaining, deliciously gritty, super-fast thriller that takes us on a cutthroat ride into an urban realm where criminal intent collides head-on with the vagaries of fate and the inscrutabilities of the human heart.In the full-throttle, noir-soaked tradition of Den! nis Lehane and Michael Connelly, the acclaimed young author of Bad Connection unleashes an ambitious and edgy new thriller pulsating with raw, urban energy.
Decorated NYPD Officer John Coglin always thought his picture on the front page of the newspaper would be one for the scrapbook.
That was before he had the bad luck to be forced into a witness-free, kill-or-be-killed confrontation with a drug-dealing thug. It's of no help to him that the incident took place during the run-up to a bitter mayoral election campaign, and that his adversary was sixteen years old and black.
Now, instead of another commendation, Coglin is staring down the barrel of a media- and politics-stoked murder rap.
But on the eve of his sure conviction arrives a fateful telephone call.
It's not the governor, but his long-lost uncle, Aidan O'Connell.
A veteran of the IRA and a recently released guest of San Quentin Penitentiary for armed-to-the-teeth robbery, Aidan offers h! is nephew a pardon that has nothing to do with lawyers.
Co! glin is about to find out that the type of amnesty Uncle Aidan is proposing is the kind that involves a beautiful but dangerous Mafia widow, a car trunk full of M-16s, and thirty million dollars in jewels smack dab in the middle of Rockefeller Center.
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is a highly entertaining, deliciously gritty, super-fast thriller that takes us on a cutthroat ride into an urban realm where criminal intent collides head-on with the vagaries of fate and the inscrutabilities of the human heart.16.6 (Before the Devil Knows You're Dead) by Primal Fear
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