Product Details

• Actors: Rosemary Harris, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei, Albert Finney
• Directors: Sidney Lumet
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Image Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: April 15, 2008
• Run Time: 117 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (154 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00112S8S2
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,419 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead [Blu-ray]" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

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 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. 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 Keogh

Product Description

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 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.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

212 of 223 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Family Implosion, April 20, 2008

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (DVD)

The full title of this film is 'May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows you're dead', a rewording of the old Irish toast 'May you have food and raiment, a soft pillow for your head; may you be 40 years in heaven, before the devil knows you're dead.' First time screenwriter Kelly Masterson (with some modifications by director Sidney Lumet) has concocted a melodrama that explores just how fragmented a family can become when external forces drive the members to unthinkable extremes. In this film the viewer is allowed to witness the gradual but nearly complete implosion of a family by a much used but, here, very sensible manipulation of the flashback/flash forward technique of storytelling. By repeatedly offering the differing vantages of each of the characters about the central incidents that drive this rather harrowing tale, we see all the motivations of the players in this case of a robbery gone very wrong.

Andy Hanson (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a wealthy executive, married to an emotionally needy Gina (Marisa Tomei), and addicted to an expensive drug habit. His life is beginning to crumble and he needs money. Andy's ne're-do-well younger brother Hank (Ethan Hawke) is a life in ruins - he is divorced from his shrewish wife Martha (Amy Ryan), is behind in alimony and child support, and has borrowed all he can from his friends, and he needs money. Andy proposes a low-key robbery of a small mall mom-and-pop jewelry store that promises safe, quick cash for both. The glitch is that the jewelry story belongs to the men's parents - Charles (Albert Finney) and Nanette (Rosemary Harris). Andy advances Hank some cash and wrangles an agreement that Hank will do the actual robbery, but though Hank agrees to the 'fail-safe' plan, he hires a friend to take on the actual job while Hank plans to be the driver of the getaway car. The robbery is horribly botched when Nanette, filing in for the regular clerk, shoots the robber and is herself shot in the mess. The disaster unveils many secrets about the fragile relationships of the family and when Nanette dies, Charles and Andy and Hank (and their respective partners) are driven to disastrous ends with surprises at every turn.

Each of the actors in this strong but emotionally acrid film gives superb performances, and while we have come to expect that from Hoffman, Hawke, Tomei, Finney, Ryan, and Harris, it is the wise hand of direction from Sidney Lumet that make this film so unforgettably powerful. It is not an easy film to watch, but it is a film that allows some bravura performances that demand our respect, a film that reminds us how fragile many families can be. Grady Harp, April 08

32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Descent into dysfunction, December 25, 2007

By 

LGwriter "SharpWitGuy" (Astoria, N.Y. United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (DVD)

At the age of 83, director Sidney Lumet proves he still has plenty of juice. And once again, Philip Seymour Hoffman proves he is one of the finest American actors working today. This powerful one-two punch nails this movie into your head; and that's further guaranteed by, a) great acting by the rest of the cast, including Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei and, in a bravura performance, Albert Finney, and b) a shockingly dark portrait of a family so dysfunctional it almost makes the Texas Chainsaw Massacre folks look tame. Well, almost.

Two brothers, played by Hawke and Hoffman, work in the same real estate company, but are hugely different. Hoffman's the bigshot; Hawke's not. Hawke's divorced; Hoffman's married to Tomei and the opening graphic scene shows just how married the two of them are. Hoffman's got problems and so does Hawke, but they're different problems, although both have their root in money.

Money drives this sucker and leads to greed, murder, despair, fear, and retribution. This is one of the darkest of noir tales in a long while; it's a noir family drama that's so unrelenting your chin drops further and further as the movie progresses and by the whopper of a tragic ending, it's definitely on the sidewalk.

But this is what makes it so compelling. It's astonishingly powerful; fundamentally, you can't believe how things can spiral so much out of control the way they do in this movie, but they do, they definitely do.

Hawke and Hoffman both needing money leads to a plan to get said money, and, of course--this being a noir film at its blackest heart--to get it completely illegally. Watch this movie to see how noir is REALLY done today, in the 21st century. As another critic pointed out, it's not so much that these guys are criminals, but that they are essentially average guys with some smarts who are in real jams and who take what looks like an easy way out to remove those jams...meaning that these guys could be you or me.

This is a real kick in the teeth movie. Serious punch, powerful acting, a director with real chops at the age of 83, and one you won't forget for a LONG time.

See it.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very chilling and engrossing film!, November 30, 2007

By 

RMurray847 "afilmcritic.com" (Albuquerque, NM United States) - See all my reviews
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I had a pretty good idea of the basic plot when I walked into the theatre. Two brothers (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke) plan to hold up a jewelry store in a strip mall...and the store is owned by THEIR PARENTS. I also knew it bounced around in time a little.

What I didn't expect was such an unrelenting look at a whole bunch of magnificently screwed-up people! WOW! I was left almost breathless by the new depths to which these folks could sink. It was a family tragedy, but there sure wasn't anything noble about these characters.

Hawke is the younger brother, and he works for the same company as his brother, but in a fairly lowly position, and he can barely make ends meet. He's way behind on his child support, and his daughter is growing more and more aggravated with him because he can't follow through on his promises to her to do things like fund her field trip to go see THE LION KING on Broadway. He appears to be ever so slighly dim-witted, although that may just be the drugs. He lives in a rough apartment and has some pretty rough friends.

Hoffman is the older brother, and while on the surface he may appear to be a little more together (he has a fairly responsible accounting position in the company)...we actually see as the movie progresses that he's in some seriously deep trouble. His marriage to Marisa Tomei is very much on the rocks, and the only good times they had recently were on vacation in South America. He believes he can start a new life down there, and keep his marriage going...but how to fund such a move? He's also into some pretty hefty drugs and even his larger salary can't fund it all.

It's his idea to rip-off the parents. ("Hey, they're insured.") Hawke finally buys into it, and they enter into the plot. It isn't spoiling much (because we see it so early in the film) to say that things don't exactly go smoothly! I won't say more, so you can see for yourself.

So why are these two guys SO screwed up? We see some of this as more scenes between the boys and their parents are revealed. In particular, we see their relationships with their father, Albert Finney. He's an old man now, but we get the idea that when he was younger, he was pretty tough old bird, difficult to please, lacking in affection and just a real poor father. Scenes with mother Rosemary Harris are fewer and less illuminating. It's really a story about how men in a family can screw each other up. BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD takes this idea to EXTREMES.

Towards the end, the actions of Hoffman in particular become almost monumentally deranged. We believe that he is doing what he's doing...but it's hard not to gasp in dismay. He is truly a completely broken and desparate man. All sympathy we might have had for him is gone...just like any sense of a moral compass he might have had. And Albert Finney arguably goes even one step more off the path of righteousness at the very end.

Anyway, I hope you get that this is not a happy, light film. But it is powerful, astonishingly well acted and written, and an absolute must-see. It's a riveting time at the theatre!!!

Hoffman is brilliant...pure and simple. His work here easily equals anything he's done before. I don't know if the film will be an Oscar contender, because it has such a small audience...but it should be and absolutely Hoffman should be up for Best Actor. Hawke is also very good...he is a complete coward and makes up both sympathize him and despise him. He could be up for Best Supporting Actor. Finney is always an imposing presence...and he's very good here. Again, I can't tell you too much without spoiling the plot line, but let's say he goes very convincingly from distraught to enraged. Marisa Tomei does another masterful performance as the woman who unknowingly is the downfall of the men in her life (in some ways...don't accuse me of being a chauvenist...I'm just saying that a lot of the choices the characters make revolve around trying to please her). She gives a brave performance (she spends a lot of time in the nude) and is her usual mixture of sultry and defenseless. If her role in IN THE BEDROOM got her a nomination (which she deserved) then I think she could have another one here.

Director Sidney Lumet may be getting on in years...but my goodness, he sure doesn't hesitate to step right into some very murky and unpleasant waters. His film is super specific, has a wonderful sense of place and he also gives his great cast the space they need to "do their stuff." No quick edits, or blitzkreig pacing when it doesn't suit. He believes we will be gripped by the story, and he's right.

This is not a film for the kids! Nor is it a film for someone looking for a glossy Hollywood film. It's pretty brutal and uncompromising. But I couldn't tear myself away, and the audience I saw it with was clearly as mesmerized as I was. GREAT stuff!!!