By Curt Schleier

It’s been 50 years since Sidney Lumet’s directorial debut with 12 ANGRY MEN, which many consider a classic.  There have been 43 films since then, including a few more classics, like DOG DAY AFTERNOON, NETWORK, and SERPICO.  Almost exactly a half century later, at age 83, Lumet is still in top form.  His most recent, BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD, is an exquisitely constructed and suspenseful study of familial disintegration.

Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is an accountant for a large New York real estate firm.  His marriage to Gina (Marisa Tomei) is troubled, he’s on drugs and has embezzled funds from his employer to pay for his habit.  The company is being audited and his crime will soon be discovered, so he hatches a plan to rob a suburban jewelry store.

The one catch is that the store is owned by his parents.  But the plan is foolproof.  The robbery takes place on the weekend, when an elderly female employee is alone in the store. His parents will collect the insurance money so everyone comes out at least even.  Well, except for the insurance company.

Andy convinces his younger brother Hank (Ethan Hawk) to do the deed.  Hank needs money to support his angry ex and their daughter.  He’s weak-willed enough to agree to his bullying brother’s plan, but not strong enough to carry it out as planned.

He gets someone else to do it for a cut of the profits, and that’s when things start to go awry.  The elderly female employee called in sick.  Andy and Hank’s mother, Nanette (Rosemary Harris), is working.  The crook of course doesn’t know that, and Hank can’t tell him because he’s in the car quaking.  Nanette reaches for a weapon, shots are fired and there are two dead bodies.


Lumet is the quintessential New York director.  By that I mean more than the fact most of not all of his pictures are shot in and around the city.  But I’ve always felt that the films had a New York I’m fed up and not going to take it anymore attitude.  There’s a ballsyness about them. That’s evident in the fact that there are no good guys in this film: both Andy, who thinks too much of himself and Hank who apparently thinks too little.

It’s evident in the way it’s shot.  He switches back and forth in time and see the same event from different perspectives.  It’s as though he’s challenging your intelligence and daring you to keep up.  And if you can’t, well fugeddaboutit.

There’s also an economy of shooting here.  There’s no artifice.  Not a single extra frame.  Lumet has been nominated for five Oscars, though he’s never won.  Ironically, he was awarded a lifetime achievement award Oscar a couple of years ago.  Most often that’s given to someone in their twilight years when they are safely ensconced in retirement.  Boy did the Academy get that wrong.