Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is a painful lesson on how not to make a movie. Once you get past relatively solid acting there’s nothing to save you from a couple hours of misery. Pointless and boring story? Check. Dull and drab visuals? Check. Plot that goes over the same material five different times in the exact same manner? Bingo!
If you’ve seen the trailer then you’ve got the story down but for those of you just joining us here is the scoop: Phil Hoffman and Ethan Hawke are brothers who are down on their luck. They need some quick cash, and Hoffman has just the ticket. He’s able to persuade little brother Ethan to go along with the misguided plan which involves robbing their parent’s jewelry store. It all goes to hell (of course) and then the movie starts.
Wait, there’s problem one. They start the film with the ending. Leaving us to figure out the rest during the duration of the film. Only there isn’t anything to “figure” out. It’s all pretty much just like the first five minutes of the film suggested. So why do this? Why not put the ending at the end as sort of a… well, I don’t know, finale? Because if you go The Usual Suspects route you need to have a damn interesting movie in the middle. The other movie to tackle this method this year was Breach and it hurt that one too. Storytellers of the world heed my warning: put your ending at the end. Or put something dynamic in the middle. But don’t forget to do both.
The other truly irksome thing is the method in which the movie is laid out. It’s told from the perspective of each of the main characters, linearly, one at a time. So first we get Hawke, then Hoffman, then their Dad, and so on and so forth. But it’s all the exact same story. We don’t get new details. We don’t get new depth to mull on. It’s like watching four boring people tell the same story back to back. By the end you’re looking for a shiv to end it with.
If I had to be nice for a moment then I’d commend the acting. Both Hoffman and Hawke do very well given the roles they’ve been asked to play. There’s not a point where you think “Well, this is ridiculous,” and that’s a credit to the leads. Marisa Tomei is also decent enough as Hoffman’s wife. Plus she goes topless. I don’t know, maybe that sort of thing will make your movie. If it does then we’d have to put it in the positive category, right?
That’s it though. Good acting and the occasional topless scene doesn’t exactly pay the bills. The story is flat, the storytelling is flat, and all we’re left with is another “art” film that will be lauded by those not solely into entertainment for their movie going dollar.
