Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead is the kind of movie that I wish that I saw in the theater and would have happily watched it two times in a row if time permitted. It is the last film that Sidney Lumet directed. Kelly Masterson, who also wrote the screenplay for Snowpiercer, wrote it. The cast is amazing: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, Michael Shannon, Amy Ryan, Brian F. O’Byrne and two Aunt Mays—Marisa Tomei and Rosemary Harris! It is basically a Greek tragedy set in New York.
Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead primarily focuses on three men and how their lives are intertwined as they are caught up in the web of one character’s wounded hubris. The opening scene is unexpected for a crime drama, and even though I went into the movie knowing way too much about what happens in the movie, it still didn’t fully prepare me for what I was about to see. I watch a lot of movies and am usually very difficult to surprise, but this film managed to do that while still feeling realistic and not melodramatic or like a soap opera. It felt pitiably grounded in reality not to seem far-fetched.
I also usually hate movies that don’t follow a linear timeline, but Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead hops around a particular event like before and after Christ. It makes Memento seem like a fairly straightforward movie, which it is, while never becoming confusing or dropping a thread. In a perfect world, after repeatedly watching the movie, I would love to see a cut of the movie in linear order. The time jumps works because they are explicit, and it rigorously sticks to showing three characters’ point of view with the singular exception of the turning point event, which these characters contributed to, but are not present when it transpires. They threw a personal apocalypse then missed it. The narrative has an inherent logic that is easy for the viewer to comprehend the story’s complex framework.
The time jumps add to the tension because we know more than the characters on screen and the answers to the questions that they are asking. We also know that we will get answers to the questions in our heads. Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead is like watching a magnificent train wreck. These men should know better about themselves, their motivations and the way that life works, but they are clueless. It is always easy to see where other people screw up while remaining completely oblivious to your personal failings. The stunning part is the lengths that each man individually goes to just to screw over the other, and they aren’t even conscious that they are doing that to each other.
While I was momentarily annoyed that we never see the women’s point of view, I think that element is part of the hubris in this story. The men never consider how the women will act in their various schemes, which ultimately leads to the failure of their elaborate plans. Even the most dysfunctional woman in Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead has enough unabashed self awareness to eventually and openly get what she wants. There is less of a dissonance between reality and their self-image.
There seemed to be a backdrop that even predates two of the three men’s existence like the battle between God and Satan about Job except God loses this round. It isn’t apparent until near the end of Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, an exchange between Finney’s character and an unscrupulous pawnbroker and the final scene as if a living character is ascending to heaven. While the entire movie is fraught with issues of morality, as the movie unfolds, there also seems to be an inherent and spectacular institutional failure in the very fabric of society that leads to the tragedy: private business, law enforcement, family.
There is one scene that resonates deeper because of what we now know about Hoffman’s personal struggle with drugs. This scene and the opening scene are a devastating contrast of how his character would like to see himself and who he actually is, but when you add an extra lawyer of Hoffman’s intimate knowledge of his character’s confrontation with himself and what it was like for Hoffman to recognize that character in his own life, what does that do to a person? We are all attracted to jobs that simultaneously heal and hurt us, but we don’t have to show that part of ourselves to everyone for their edification or entertainment.
If you ever took Hawke for granted, the last few prolific years on his resume should disabuse you of that notion, but if you need more evidence, I watched Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead soon after First Reformed, and it is simply unbelievable that the same person is playing such different people, neither of whom bear any resemblance to Hawke, who often seems to be playing a version of himself in Juliet, Naked or the Richard Linklater trilogy. It is easy to forget Hawke with so many alpha men performing, but he does his thing well and has some understated knife twisting moments if you’re paying attention.
Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead has funny moments when tertiary characters are less angst ridden about their wicked ways. “If Bobby wanted a car, he would have fucking stolen one.” When Shannon is playing the role of comic relief, you know things have gone sideways. Tomei gets a few moments to fumble for our fun. The snarky drug dealer with clear boundaries gave me life. Leonardo Cimino steals every scene that he is in. Side note: if you can leave someone with only two suitcases after being married to them, that relationship was never going to work.
When I think of Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, I think primarily of the performances and the story, but visually it is a masterful work of art as well. As we learn more about different characters’ perspectives, there is also a visual reprise or mirror image to every scene. It never feels boring or redundant, and the editing rhythm always matches the pacing of the story. My one complaint about Lumet’s early work, which may peg me as a barbarian, is that his scenes can be as ugly as his characters, specifically in The Pawnbroker (I don’t remember much about that movie), but even though this movie is set in grubby dark apartments, strip malls and suburbs then elevated to high end restaurants, office buildings and penthouses, it didn’t feel like he was going for gritty or sleek, but remaining faithful to the atmosphere without being too extra. Lumet left on the top of his game, and we should all be so fortunate as he was to be doing our best work at the end of our lives.
Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead is a must see unless you can’t tolerate profanity, nudity, a single explicit sexual act, depictions of drug use or gun violence. If it was playing on the big screen, I would pay to see it even though I already saw it at home.