Sidney Lumet's most recent picture is probably his best. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is a masterpiece on so many levels. This film examines karma in the most powerful ways possible. The convoluted plot starts out with two brothers (Phillip Seymour Hoffman, in one of three films that he did that year, and Ethan Hawke) scheme to rob a jewelry store. This sounds like a boring heist movie, but Hoffman's character has devised a plan to rob his parents jewelry store. You don't see this one everyday. The events that follow are both brutal and powerful.
The plot is nonlinear in a way to show why the characters got what they deserved. As the plots get more and more twisted and intertwined, the characters lives begin to fall apart in front of them. By the end, everybody remains changed forever. The last twenty minutes are so forceful and engaging that they stick with you for at least a day.
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead did not recieve any Academy Award nominations, yet, I believe it could have taken home the Best Picture award had they given it the chance. Sidney Lumet also could have gotten an award for his stark and beautiful imagery.
The film is disturbing and sticks with you for a while. You'll be thinking about it for at least a day. Karma never did seem like such a bad thing until now. The characters show probably have never seen an episode of My Name is Earl and probably should. They could have used it by the end.
P.S.-I still am disgusted by the extremely graphic anal sex scene with Phillip Seymour Hoffman in the beginning. Nobody wants to see that.
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