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Features: Dolby, Digital Audio, Dolby Digital (5.1)
Master filmmaker Sidney Lumet (The Verdict, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico) scores big with this absorbing suspense thriller. Oscar-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman (Best Actor: Capote, 2005) is Andy, an overextended payroll executive 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 real mom and pop, and when the seemingly perfect crime goes awry, the damage sends them hurtling toward a shattering climax.
"Full of really first-rate performances. A very well-made gripping thriller." A.O. Scott, The New York Times
"There's so much to recommend about Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead that is seems perverse to pick just one aspect to focus on." Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times
"Sharply acted and highly entertaining..." Claudia Puig, USA Today
"...it's hard to imagine [Lumet] capable of making a bad movie. The thing is just enthralling." David Edelstein, New York Magazine
"Pungently atmospheric, brilliantly textured and featuring superb performances from every performer in parts big and small." Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter
"Beautifully acted. Sidney Lumet is working at the very tippy-top of his considerable game. Don't miss it." Leah Rozen, People
"Grade A: Mesmerizing. Riveting." Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
Editor's Note
From the unexpectedly graphic opening shot, director Sidney Lumet proves he hasn't lost any of his bite with age. BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD is a riveting suspense thriller that retains the director's classic approach to storytelling while updating it at the same time. Working from an intense, expertly woven script by playwright-turned-screenwriter Kelly Masterson, Lumet establishes his tragic tone immediately. The story concerns a New York family with a roiling undercurrent of dysfunction. The eldest son, Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman), is a frustrated, drug-abusing stockbroker who is unable to satisfy his gorgeous wife (Marisa Tomei). The youngest son, Hank (Ethan Hawke), is passive and struggles to make alimony payments. Their parents (Albert Finney and Rosemary Harris) live in Westchester and operate a small jewelry store. Their lives begin to unravel when Andy approaches Hank about pulling off a heist that will seemingly solve all of their monetary problems. Everything about this idea is risky, yet Andy convinces his timid younger brother that this is his only way out of his current situation. Naturally, their plan falls apart, resulting in a series of tragedies that they never could have predicted.BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD belongs beside such Lumet classics as DOG DAY AFTERNOON, NETWORK, and SERPICO. The cinematography and editing and score are all excellent, but the performances are what launch the film into the stratosphere. Oscar-winner Hoffman (CAPOTE) and Finney have never been better, and the rest of the cast--Hawke, Tomei, Michael Shannon--rise to the occasion with unforgettable results.
| Features | Audio: English DTS HD 5.1 Surround Sound | | Documentary Directed By Sidney Lumet: How The Devil Was Made | | Feature Audio Commentary With Director Sidney Lumet, & Actors Philip Seymour Hoffman & Ethan Hawke | | Interactive Menus | | Original Theatrical Trailer | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, Spanish | | This Is A Blu-Ray DVD Made For Blue-Laser Format Players Which Produce Higher Quality Picture & Sound |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Image |
| Release Date: 4/15/2008 |
| Running Time: 117 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2007 | | Catalog ID: 4912 | | UPC: 00014381491258 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Nominee (2008) | | | Independent Spirit, Kelly Masterson, Best First Screenplay | | | Independent Spirit, Marisa Tomei, Best Supporting Female |
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| | Professional Reviews | Rolling Stone
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "Lumet fuses dark wit, suspense and tragedy into a time-shifting movie that vibrates with energy. All the actors are first-rate..." 11/01/2007 p.91Box Office
"Lumet energizes the material by continually shifting the audience's perspective on the characters....Hoffman gives a sharply etched performance." 11/01/2007 p.114 Entertainment Weekly
"[Lumet] works with vigor and cunning and wide-awake elegance of a virtuoso half his age....Lumet's talent is, in every sense, timeless." -- Grade: A 11/02/2007 p.48-49 Los Angeles Times
"A tense anti-caper...that's part thriller and part Greek tragedy....In it, Lumet breaks down the moral cause-and-effect process..." 11/02/2007 Rolling Stone
Ranked #8 in Rolling Stone's "10 Best Movies Of 2007" -- "Lumet takes a first-rate script by Kelly Masterson and keeps it popping." 12/27/2007 120 Uncut
4 stars out of 5 -- "[W]hat is impressive is its youth, energy, and its willingness to play games with storytelling..." 02/01/2008 p.110 Empire
4 stars out of 5 -- "[Lumet is] doing some of his best work, as this bleak, almost Shakespearean tragedy conclusively proves." 02/01/2008 p.53 Sight and Sound
"Hoffman masterfully essays the elder brother's manipulative string-pulling..." 02/01/2008 p.54-55 ReelViews 8 of 10
Philip Seymour Hoffman is in fine form as a man teetering on the edge. It's never clear exactly what Andy's motives for the robbery are - does he need the money so he and his wife can move to Brazil and start over or is the loot intended to feed his drug habit? Hoffman's performance here echoes what he did in 2003's Owning Mahowny. It's a single-minded, balls-to-the-wall portrayal that's riveting. Ethan Hawke exists primarily in Hoffman's shadow, but manages to hold his own. Hawke isn't great here, but he's good enough to make us interested in the character...The family dynamic becomes a crucial aspect of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. Although it starts as a crime story stepped in bitter irony, it turns into a drama about fathers and sons and brothers and the issues and rancor and jealousy that can exist in those relationships. Andy is the most interesting character, Hank is the most complicated, and Charles is the most driven. In fact, Charles' scenes allow Before the Devil Knows You're Dead to stray into the revenge/vigilante territory that has recently been mined by films such as The Brave One and Reservation Road. This is not classic Sidney Lumet, but it's ample evidence that after more than 40 years working in this business, the director is still capable of crafting an entertaining and thought provoking motion picture. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 10 of 10
Sidney Lumet's "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" is such a superb crime melodrama that I almost want to leave it at that. To just stop writing right now and advise you to go out and see it as soon as you can. I so much want to avoid revealing plot points that I don't even want to risk my usual strategy of oblique hints. You deserve to walk into this one cold...The brilliant debut screenplay by Kelly Masterson takes us up to a certain point, then flashes back to before that point, then catches us up again, then doubles back, so that it meticulously reconstructs how spectacularly and inevitably this perfect crime went wrong...This isn't a movie where the crime is only a plot, and dead bodies are only plot devices. Its story has deeply emotional consequences. That's why an actor with Albert Finney's depth is needed for an apparently supporting role. If he isn't there when he's needed, the whole film loses. As for Hoffman and Hawke, so seemingly different but such intelligent actors, they pull off that miracle that makes us stop thinking of anything we know about them, and start thinking only of Andy and Hank...This is a movie, I promise you, that grabs you and won't let you think of anything else. It's wonderful when a director like Lumet wins a Lifetime Achievement Oscar at 80, and three years later makes one of his greatest achievements. - Roger Ebert
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