Phillip Seymour Hoffman didn’t win his Academy Award for playing a nice, normal fellow and I don’t think we can expect to see him cheering anybody up onscreen any time soon. Certainly not during “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” in which director Sidney Lumet achieves the level of anguish he created in his 1975 classic, “Dog Day Afternoon.”
Like that film, this story concerns a robbery concocted out of sheer desperation. It turns out that most of these fool proof heists where no one gets hurt tend to go horribly wrong, so if you and a relative, lover or co-worker are planning one, rent this film and reconsider.
The story is told through multiple points of view, thoughtfully labeled rather than artfully, intentionally confusing. One of these is wormy Ethan Hawke, a cute loser way behind on his child support payments, sleeping with his brother’s pretty wife. The brother in question is Phillip Seymour Hoffman, a seemingly powerful and confident man struggling to keep his marriage to aforementioned pretty wife afloat.
It turns out that’s the least of his problems. The film begins with a graphic sex scene between the two of them, setting the tone for Marisa Tomei’s character throughout the film: nude. Lumet may be old but he’s not dead yet. In a rare moment of satisfaction, the couple wishes that they could always be on vacation like they are now, and wonder why things are only right between them when they’re away.
But infidelity is just one of the problems the couple faces. With an impending audit at Hoffman’s office, his need for money sharply increases, and there’s more than just a romantic getaway at stake. Knowing his pathetic brother to be highly suggestible, he insists they rob their parents’ suburban jewelry store, promising that famous promise: that no one will get hurt.
When things go wrong at the jewelry store, we are rewarded with a bigger part for the fantastic Albert Finney, going crazy with rage and confusion over the terrible turn his life has taken. Rather than simply wrapping up the original problems, the film skillfully delves deeper into the characters’ psychology and past, while keeping up the intensity. It winds up and up until it is so tight you think it will explode. And then it does.
This is a masterful film, paced to perfection and acted impressively. That is why it is another entry on my perhaps controversial list of movies that I thought were better then “No Country for Old Men.” In general, I love the Coen brothers, but I consider their Academy Award for that film a late prize for their earlier films. And I’m not ashamed to admit that I didn’t see what the big deal was with this movie.
It’s not just that it wasn’t the best picture I saw last year; it also isn’t the Coen’s best picture. “Fargo” was bleak, violent, and funny, but in this film, their nihilistic humor has gone out, blackened into meaninglessness, obliterated beyond entertainment.
I know it wasn’t as cool because nobody died and it had a plot, but I liked “Juno” better. It was a little on the heartwarming side, but the dialogue was so funny and the characters were wonderful. There weren’t any characters in “No Country for Old Men.” Was Javier Bardem supposed to be Death? Every person was a blank. I don’t know if this approach was daring, or just boring, but I felt that in that film, their was nothing behind the facades they propped up, moved around, and brutally, inconsequentially murdered. I’m wondering if the king has nothing on after all.
Contact Asia Frey at afrey@lagniappemobile.com.
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