Sympathy For The Devil.

We know you…better than you think. By perus­ing this blog it is obvi­ous you enjoy the bet­ter things in life.  Beautiful design, art, music, and cin­ema are impor­tant to you. You wouldn’t be caught dead exit­ing a dark­ened the­ater where the plot of a movie involves end­less explo­sions or relies solely on spe­cial effects to tell a story. You want a tale of the human condition.

When you read the descrip­tion on the back of the dvd for Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead (THINKfilm 2007) you see the words rob­bery and mur­der.…wait…don’t put it back on the shelf. This movie is wor­thy of your time. Directed by the leg­endary Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men, Serpico, Network, Dog Day Afternoon) who presents the sto­ry­line in non-chronological order and from mul­ti­ple view­points, the film is an excel­lent study of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s main char­ac­ter who cracks under pres­sure. (Hint… the pres­sure is from the words rob­bery and mur­der… also drugs and infi­delity. This char­ac­ter has all the fun).  A scene involv­ing Mr. Hoffman and Marisa Tomei in a car is a major turn­ing point in the film and as Sidney Lumet describes…“is one of the most com­pellingly acted scenes he has ever filmed.”  Philip Seymour Hoffman proves once again, to be one of the best male actors of our gen­er­a­tion in this film.

There is also a lot of Sidney Lumet in this movie. He is known for a method­i­cal approach to direct­ing, from pre-production through to the edit­ing and sound. It is clear that this story is well-told not only by Hoffman’s genius, but by the part­ner­ship he shares with a bril­liant direc­tor who uses cin­e­matog­ra­phy to present points of view that clar­ify the back­wards unfold­ing the viewer expe­ri­ences watch­ing this story. One scene in par­tic­u­lar, where Hoffman sits, fused in a chair by a drug induced malaise at the apart­ment of his dealer recit­ing a mono­logue, is per­haps one of the most bril­liant exam­ples of what cam­era angling and move­ment can do for an actor and for a film.

The sup­port­ing char­ac­ters are also well cast with Ethan Hawke, Ms. Tomei, and Albert Finney. The story does have some holes in it and there are some odd moments that will have you scratch­ing your head, but take our advice, focus on Mr. Hoffman and his futile descent from a plan gone awry. If you do that and appre­ci­ate the non-linear pre­sen­ta­tion of the story then your fine cin­ema rep­u­ta­tion will remain in tact.

Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead Trailer

Michael Spurrier. HighStreet. Cincinnati