Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An underrated masterpiece, 18 Mar 2008
This has the grandeur of a Greek tragedy with riveting performances from Ethan Hawke and Marisa Tomei and a monumental one from Hoffman. The fractured time lapses might seem annoying initially but serve instead to add layer after layer of meaning and pathos. Like much tragedy small mistakes and petty jealousies gather a momentum all of their own. This is, in short, a wonderful film which will be recognized for what it is really worth in years to come. To criticise it for a lack of verisimilitude is a risible judgement - this is raw and real life.
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2 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
5/10. Before the devil knows you've made a bad film, 2 Feb 2008
Why Sydney Lumet doesn't get the recognition that the likes of Coppola and Scorcese receive for their 1970s output is a mystery. 'Serpico' (1973), 'Dog Day Afternoon' (1975) and 'Network' (1976) all feature among lists of the key films in that decade yet somehow Lumet managed subsequently to fade into irrelevance. Maybe because - now in his 80s - Lumet was not pigeonholed as part of the moviebrat generation that changed film culture so radically, he does not share their esteem as an auteur. It is also a mystery that Lumet is not only alive but still making movies, having made his directorial debut with the brilliant 12 Angry Men in 1957.
Billed as his comeback movie, Lumet's 'Before The Devil Knows Your Dead' is a violent and rather overacted heist movie starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney and Marisa Tomei. No stanger to the genre, and with a superlative cast including one of the best character actors of his generation (Hoffman), what could possibly go wrong for Lumet? Well, it's hard to put a finger on why this film is so bad, especially since it opens memorably with Hoffman giving Tomei some outrageously explicit doggy-style action. Not bad for a director in his 80s. The problem is that for all the cutting back and forth in time and increasing plot complexity, Lumet never delivers on creating a) tangible sense of reality, b) characters we could empathise with, c) anything that is remotely visually stimulating (Marisa Tomei excepting). Stylistically bland, there are scenes in the film where you can smell the cheap hollowness of the sets, several of which have that unpeopled two-dimensionality common to soap operas. The lackadaisical approach to verisimilitude undermines the credibility of the performances. When we see Hoffman and Hawke really losing it - blood, sweat and tears - it is deeply unmoving because it feels only like acting, in front of a camera, on a set somewhere. At no point is our belief suspended, less still when the body count gets recklessly high, and the plot direction increasingly silly. Best forgotten in itself, if this film regenerates an interest in Lumet's work then it will have been a success of sorts.
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1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
5/10. Before the Devil Knows You've Made a Bad Film, 3 Feb 2008
Why Sydney Lumet doesn't get the recognition that the likes of Coppola and Scorcese receive for their 1970s output is a mystery. 'Serpico' (1973), 'Dog Day Afternoon' (1975) and 'Network' (1976) all feature among lists of the key films in that decade yet somehow Lumet managed subsequently to fade into irrelevance. Maybe because - now in his 80s - Lumet was not pigeonholed as part of the moviebrat generation that changed film culture so radically, he does not share their esteem as an auteur. It is also a mystery that Lumet is not only alive but still making movies, having made his directorial debut with the brilliant 12 Angry Men in 1957.
Billed as his comeback movie, Lumet's 'Before The Devil Knows Your Dead' is a violent and rather overacted heist movie starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney and Marisa Tomei. No stanger to the genre, and with a superlative cast including one of the best character actors of his generation (Hoffman), what could possibly go wrong for Lumet? Well, it's hard to put a finger on why this film is so bad, especially since it opens memorably with Hoffman giving Tomei some outrageously explicit doggy-style action. Not bad for a director in his 80s. The problem is that for all the cutting back and forth in time and increasing plot complexity, Lumet never delivers on creating a) tangible sense of reality, b) characters we could empathise with, c) anything that is remotely visually stimulating (Marisa Tomei excepting). Stylistically bland, there are scenes in the film where you can smell the cheap hollowness of the sets, several of which have that unpeopled two-dimensionality common to soap operas.
The lackadaisical approach to verisimilitude undermines the credibility of the performances. When we see Hoffman and Hawke really losing it - blood, sweat and tears - it is deeply unmoving because it feels only like acting, in front of a camera, on a set somewhere. At no point is our belief suspended, less still when the body count gets recklessly high, and the plot direction increasingly silly. It's all a long way from Lumet's gritty 70s output. Best forgotten in itself, if this film regenerates an interest in Lumet's work then it will have been a success of sorts.
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