I love this movie so much

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

As a last film for a truly legendary director, Before The Devil Knows You're Dead can only be described as a haunting, underrated masterpiece that any viewer will not soon forget. The film consists of an all-star cast, including the likes of the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei and Albert Finney. Even Michael Shannon shares a brief, but memorable, bit of run time. The casting was excellent all around and there were no characters that felt out of place or unnecessary to the story. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke specifically were the best either of them have ever been. The solid script and carefully written dialogue shared between the two main characters delivers some of the film's most riveting moments. And the "car scene" is one of Hoffman's most memorable on-screen moments. Those of you who have seen the film will know what I am referring to and those unaware are in for a treat.The story, while simple and admittedly not too original, manages to effectively show the characters' descent into violence and madness while jumping to before and after the event in which the movie revolves around. While sometimes the movie holds our hand a little too much with the story telling, I appreciated the fact that this movie wanted us to never be confused or lost within the time-jumping narrative. I was always aware of where our characters were and what point of the story I was witnessing.Now I have seen many comparisons between this film and the masterpiece known as Fargo, and while it shares the same theme of "simple crime gone horribly wrong" Before The Devil Knows You're Dead is not a darkly comedic venture. In fact, this movie is rarely anything but somber and hopeless. This is not a bad thing though as it seems that this was the director's intent. Delivering a powerful message through spurts of violence and intensity while never straying from the realm of reality within the movie. The violence and thrills are handled very well and are, at times, extremely intense.Now with all that said, there is only one thing that stopped the movie from being perfect and that is the ending. Normally when following characters throughout a movie we like to see how their story ends. It is common in all basic story telling. The importance of this cannot be stressed enough, especially if we are following a certain character throughout the entire film. Viewers want to know what happened to the character they have been following for the past two hours, but this movie denies you of that. It leaves the fate of the character out of view, and while that works for some movies, I sadly don't think it was the right choice here. Seeing all the things that this character has gone through and leaving it unfinished before the movie is over feels incredibly abrupt and doesn't fit with the rest of the movie. Despite this issue, Before The Devil Knows You're Dead is a masterpiece from a truly talented director. A tight written script brought together by superb acting and thrills, this is definitely a movie you should make time for.

Remember William H. Macy in FARGO, how things just got progressively worse for the guy after the crime was committed? BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD is a lot like that, just without the black humor, and every character pays a price. The outlook is bleak for everyone involved - and while that's not normally a selling point for me, I couldn't look away. This is a two hour stretch of top-shelf talent, and the acting is what drew me in. The sublime Marisa Tomei didn't hurt either, but I'm trying to be mature about this. This isn't light-n-fluffy material in the least, but it's a good story with great performances.And Marisa Tomei's also in it. Lumet knew what he was doing.7/10

I was reading a review of another film recently that referred to this film and decided to give the IMDb page a look. I was surprised to see it got such high reviews. I'm no sloucher when it comes to appreciating obtuse, crafted films so I don't think I'm being hard on it here.This is a film about a robbery gone wrong, the messed up lives of the people involved, and the miserable aftermath. We've seen this type of film a hundred times before and I didn't see anything new. OK, I saw Marisa Tomei in a nude cameo but that was it (and she's getting old so that kind of ruined it for me after seeing her at her best in My Cousin Vinny). Of COURSE criminals are sad mess ups. I can tune to COPS to see losers get busted without their shirt on. I may have missed something, but the characters were one dimensional: The weak brother, the successful psycho brother, the uncaring working class father, and the pretty, aging girlfriend. Great. Held my interest for about 10 seconds.This film reminds me of Sideways which was far better at developing depth for their stereotypical characters: The pretty boy on a fling, the likable loser, the aspiring divorcée, the struggling single mother. Those characters had depth and you remembered them long after the film ended and they were mostly character actors. This film had big names and I knew what would happen about 5 minutes in. In case you don't, don't worry, they'll throw you the same obvious hints about 3 times in flashbacks.Doing a gangster film takes skill, creativity, and daring because the genre has been so well covered. Tarantino did this masterfully by portraying criminals as something they rarely are: thoughtful, tasteful, and articulate (most are losers which is why they are criminals.) This gangster film failed (for me) perhaps because it featured seemingly actual criminals who, apart from a few seconds getting shoved into a police car without a shirt on, are not that interesting.

This film had the potential to be one of the very best of 2007, due to the script, but it was wasted. The direction kinda ruined the film. The non-linear narrative chosen was a mess: there was no need for it. Gratuitous, i must say. Some point of views in the story are pointless and don't add nothing to it, much the opposite. It also killed some twists in it that would be work perfectly fine. Also, i felt that the script lacked a bit of humor and dread. It's too dread in all aspects of filmmaking. The cinematography, or better, the art design, was very bad. The generic and bright gray was all over the place, and this is really a common aspect in the low budget Hollywood films that i strongly dislike. Because after all, it kills the colors of the film. Colors are essential.The soundtrack was as well generic. Just a tongue in the cheek score which plays like thrice in the entire film. Could've done a lot better. The performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman was great tough. He really did well portraying the disturbed predicted future psycho man.Anyways, this film could've done a lot better, but unfortunately it is that way and i don't recommend. 6.1/10