This movie is one of the darkest tales I have ever seen - now you are warned. Its story unfolds much like one of the Shakespearean (or Greek) tragedies and it does not offer much conselation in its darkness.

Only exception is the acting with is superb and carries the movie as does the (exagerated) issues it highlights in the relations between parents and child and importantly parents and multiple children in as much as how the 2-3 children are often treated very differently more or less entirely due to the order in which they were born.

It is definetely a watchable movie and wont be a waste of your time but it is not exactly a must see either and hardly the most uplifting of its kind.

A co-worker recommmended this movie to me, telling me that it was a drama that nearly bordered on horror. As a huge fan of horror, I was curious. Adversely, I'm not a drama fan. In my collection of movies, I own only 3 dramas, including this one.
After viewing Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, I was ready to tear into it. It is far too ridiculous to be considered drama, or even thriller. I was thinking it was much closer to melodrama.
But lo and behold, after reading the first handful of Amazon reviews, I've discovered that the director WANTED this to be melodrama. So on that level alone, this movie is a complete success. I didn't even know melodrama was a genre.
As such, the movie is extremely enjoyable, even to someone like me with the horror background. In fact, this movie is to drama what Ichi the Killer is to Horror. WAY OVER THE TOP.
Make a list of all the possible dramatic scenarios, such as the crumbling marriage, the dysfunctional father / son relationship, the embezzling from work scenario, the sibling rivalry, the infidelity story, the drug addict plotline, and on and on . . .
This movie has all of them. ALL OF THEM.
Ridiculous. And yet vastly entertaining.
I mean, the story begins with the husband character trying to hold his marriage together- he needs money to start a new life with his wife-
and by the middle of the third act, she's divorcing him and he doesn't even care. In fact he's giving her cab money to leave him. He's in such disastrous situation that the marriage has become his least pressing dilemma.
Again, it's ridiculous. Still, I'm compelled to recommend it.

First off, any movie that has Marisa Tomei naked in three different scenes automatically gets four stars. However, this movie is even better than that! It's incredible that the guy who made movies like '12 Angry Men', 'Serpico', 'Dog Day Afternoon', 'Network' and 'The Verdict', can actually come out with one of his best at age 83. This is a great crime drama about a heist where everything goes wrong. But it's not really a heist movie, that's just the outline for the in-depth character studies. Philip Seymour Hoffman is his usual amazing self, Ethan Hawke matches him as his brother; Marisa Tomei is hotter than ever (did I mention that she gets naked? three times?), and does a good job playing Hoffman's depressive wife. Albert Finney is Oscar-worthy as their father, and there's even a small role for Amy Ryan, who shined in the movie I watched the previous evening, 'Gone Baby Gone'. One of Sidney Lumet's best movies, and that's really saying something.

What a dark and depressing film Sidney Lumet has created. Technically everything works from the script, the acting, the directing, and so forth but I still wasn't impressed. What annoyed me the most was the 'Reservoir Dogs' style of jumping back and forth from the robbery, the preparations before the robbery, the aftermath of the robbery. The film is already long at two hours and this abrupt back and forth made it feel longer. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke play the Hanson brothers: Andy and Hank. Andy (Hoffman) is married to an insecure trophy wife (the nude Marisa Tomei) and their sex life is only happening when they are vacationing in Rio. He wants enough money to move there permanently so that him and his wife can enjoy each other to the fullest. He hates his job in the corporate world and is in danger of being found out by IRS auditors since he has been stealing money to support his drug habit. Hank (Hawke) is a loving father who can't find the money to pay his alimony and child support. His ex wife has no sympathy for him and belittles him in front of their daughter. Both men are desperate for a quick fix and Andy comes up with just the solution. They will knock over a "mom and pop" jewelry store and split the six grand profit. He assures Hank that it is a "victimless" crime since the shop owners will collect the insurance. The only hitch is that the mom and pop he's referring to are their own parents. Beginning with a dark premise like two brothers robbing their parents' store things can only get darker from here and they do. Murder, double cross, blackmail, drugs, infidelity, revenge, I don't think Lumet leaves anything out. Hoffman is good as the older brother who resents having to carry his younger brother all these years and who is pissed off at the old man for not loving him as much as his other siblings. Hawke is extremely touching as a devoted father who is desperate to buy his daughter the things that will make her happy. Tomei's character isn't really fleshed out (poor pun I know) and is reduced to a vulnerable woman caught between two brothers. Finney is heartbreaking as the father who has to admit his shortcomings to his grown sons and struggle to find some answers in light of the senseless tragedy that befalls him and his wife. The only light moments come from the awesome Michael Shannon as a blackmailer who has the film's greatest line "Now listen Chico. Do you mind if I call you Chico?". I don't know if I'd call it another Lumet masterpiece but even in his eighties he shows that he's still got what it takes.

I am surprised how highly praised this film is ... I thought it was bad. Shockingly bad because there are so many great actors in this film: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, and even a little Rosemary Harris.

It was weird, yet intriguing in its stylized design. The family dynamic was also interesting to watch as it unfolded. But you could never truly connect to these characters or their problems, because you never truly understood them. The scenes are just short snippets. Even so, this is not a flaw, but rather just a detached film.

The plot is weak; leading me to believe the dynamic style was an attempt to cover up a rather mundane, short, predictable film. Two brothers plot to rob their parent's suburban shopping mall jewelry store, when things suddenly fall apart. The rest of the film is a flashback/forward of each character's take on the robbery, its precedents, and its aftermath. The acting is not necessarily bad, but it definitely is not good. Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman do a convincing job, but they cannot save this hopeless film.

Marisa Tomei is a huge disappointment. Apparently this was a low budget film because there was not enough money to buy her a decent wardrobe (she likes to spend several prolonged, and unnecessary scenes naked or nearly so). What happened to her career? This is a sad film for her most of all. Unless you really like one of these actors, or love Sidney Lumet, I would not waste your time on this film. Truly disappointed.

A dark and engrossing cinematic experience that will carry you relentlessly along from beginning to end--  it details a botched, half-assed jewel robbery carried out against their own parents by 2 slimy brothers; one, a manipulative sociopath, superbly played by the always mesmerizing Philip Seymour Hoffman...the other a weak, easily-manipulated loser also superbly played by Ethan Hawke. The father of this profoundly dysfunctional clan is the always great Albert Finney. Marisa Tomei proves herself not only still beautiful but talented as well. As Irishgit mentions, this could have been written by Shakespeare (or George Higgins), were he living today, and Hoffman's character is a modern-day, drug-addicted Iago. Hoffman is one of the best actors working in films today...he's absolutely chilling and in the scene where he rages in the car with Tomei, he's hypnotic...and this is perhaps the most consistently effective film I've seen from Lumet. It gives one heart; just when you're telling yourself there's no point in going to movies any longer, something like "Before The Devil Knows You're Dead" comes out and proves that at least on occasion, a great and towering film can still be produced. It's not a masterpiece like "Treasure of Sierra Madre" or "White Heat", but it's probably as close to a masterpiece as you're likely  to get in this era of "The Hulk" and "The Love Guru" and "Iron Man".

I pulled this one out of the Red Box recently, because Philip Seymour Hoffman was in it and becasue it was directed by journeyman Sidney Lumet, who crafted the film in much  the same way he would if it was a stage play. By the time this one was over, however, the underlying concept of this film blew all of the elements out of the water.

If you grouped all films and then eliminated all horror/slasher/monster movies/gruesome war movies, what you would be left with is one film that probablly stands alone in the "Can You Imagine A Darker Thing Happening In Your Life?" category. This is the one bell you'd never want to have to un-ring.

Paid one buck to watch it, but was worth four, easily. Not an instant classic, however and one that Johnny Dangerously recommends that you see once...only once!.

A well crafted melodramatic thriller, with a fine cast, well written and well directed by the legendary Sidney Lumet.

Philip Seymour Hoffman is his usual brilliant self, and Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei and Ethan Hawke are excellent.

The plot may seem a little contrived, sometimes almost Shakespearean in its byzantine intricacy but it is utterly rivetting, and drags you into the film and the moral nuances it contains.