Spring Break
Lumet film traces psychological spiral
Issue date: 11/8/07
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A work as spare as Before the Devil Knows You're Dead might lack box office draw and political currency. It relies instead on a self-conscious sense of timelessness and its director's humanistic investment in characters who, usually, are only invested in themselves.
As in his 1976 satirical masterpiece, Network, Lumet here shows an admirable comfort with blatant, logic-defying melodrama. The extremes of outrage, sex and death that earlier served the director as comic ammunition this time yield a share of absurd situations - which might seem amusingly ironic, except that Lumet never relaxes the pitch of his material's tragic overtones.
Lust and ambition assume a primal aura in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. Even though screenwriter Kelly Masterson doesn't handle her dramatis personae flawlessly, mutating a family of upstanding New Yorkers into would-be criminals - with any degree of plausibility - is in itself a small, striking achievement.
Granted, it is never easy to exert discipline over a movie that runs like a Manhattan-based fusion of Reservoir Dogs and a couple plays by Tennessee Williams. Lumet's consistently taut camerawork is one of the movie's boons but still provides his actors with plenty of room to operate. This liberty is just what Finney needs to transform Charles from the tri-state area's number-one granddad into a portrait of vindictive pride. And this kind of liberty also allows Hawke and Tomei to play endless variations on the reactions of their none-too-bright characters. As their habits pile up, Hank and Gina quietly emerge as sensitive people.
Consistency, though, can give way to monotony all too easily. Lumet seems comfortable with a score consisting mainly of awesome, ominous brass sequences by Carter Burwell - played over and over until, like the thrice-shown scene of the robbery, it sticks in the audience's brains. This isn't entirely a flaw. But - and the same goes for Tomei's and Hawke's performances-this standardization of methods makes the psychological variety of Masterson's script much harder to discern.
Verging on illogicality and irregularity, Andy poses a different problem. The most compelling motives for his holdup are revealed so late that they feel almost artificial, while Hoffman sometimes strains to get the character right, sometimes coasts spectacularly through his lines.
But Andy is also the richest turn that the Oscar-winner has had, allowing the actor to achieve psychological nuances that his title role in Capote, thanks to a certain over-determined quirkiness, simply prohibited.
It takes a dramatist of Hoffman's potency to craft a portrait of familial treachery and near-villainy without a great, tragic reason. Yet a creation like Andrew Hansen would never have registered without a cinematic maestro and proven actor's director like Lumet at the helm. The brothers' dead-of-morning raid and its tense aftermath may spiral quickly out of control. As a piece of filmic art, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead never even comes close.
As in his 1976 satirical masterpiece, Network, Lumet here shows an admirable comfort with blatant, logic-defying melodrama. The extremes of outrage, sex and death that earlier served the director as comic ammunition this time yield a share of absurd situations - which might seem amusingly ironic, except that Lumet never relaxes the pitch of his material's tragic overtones.
Lust and ambition assume a primal aura in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. Even though screenwriter Kelly Masterson doesn't handle her dramatis personae flawlessly, mutating a family of upstanding New Yorkers into would-be criminals - with any degree of plausibility - is in itself a small, striking achievement.
Granted, it is never easy to exert discipline over a movie that runs like a Manhattan-based fusion of Reservoir Dogs and a couple plays by Tennessee Williams. Lumet's consistently taut camerawork is one of the movie's boons but still provides his actors with plenty of room to operate. This liberty is just what Finney needs to transform Charles from the tri-state area's number-one granddad into a portrait of vindictive pride. And this kind of liberty also allows Hawke and Tomei to play endless variations on the reactions of their none-too-bright characters. As their habits pile up, Hank and Gina quietly emerge as sensitive people.
Consistency, though, can give way to monotony all too easily. Lumet seems comfortable with a score consisting mainly of awesome, ominous brass sequences by Carter Burwell - played over and over until, like the thrice-shown scene of the robbery, it sticks in the audience's brains. This isn't entirely a flaw. But - and the same goes for Tomei's and Hawke's performances-this standardization of methods makes the psychological variety of Masterson's script much harder to discern.
Verging on illogicality and irregularity, Andy poses a different problem. The most compelling motives for his holdup are revealed so late that they feel almost artificial, while Hoffman sometimes strains to get the character right, sometimes coasts spectacularly through his lines.
But Andy is also the richest turn that the Oscar-winner has had, allowing the actor to achieve psychological nuances that his title role in Capote, thanks to a certain over-determined quirkiness, simply prohibited.
It takes a dramatist of Hoffman's potency to craft a portrait of familial treachery and near-villainy without a great, tragic reason. Yet a creation like Andrew Hansen would never have registered without a cinematic maestro and proven actor's director like Lumet at the helm. The brothers' dead-of-morning raid and its tense aftermath may spiral quickly out of control. As a piece of filmic art, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead never even comes close.
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