Director - Sidney Lumet
Genre - Crime/Drama/Thriller
When giants fall, they go down hard don't they? Our love for cinema had been shaped, molded and preserved eons ago by a few of cinema's illuminating lighthouses. Kurosawa, Coppola, Lumet and Orson Welles were part of our formative influences culminating in our collective tastes in movies now. Thus, as one of the directors whom we look up to, Lumet was untouchable and beyond reproach. Sadly, with this latest offering, Lumet seems to be saying, "My game's up. I've no more tricks up my sleeve. It was a pleasure to enthrall you all but now I must leave the hall." What started out like a smart thriller/whodunit took a very wrong turn instead and ended up disastrously farcical. Come back to us, old friend. We still adore you and the magic you once weaved.
1.5 STARS!
All about Before The Devil Knows You're Dead
Comments
This film was so terribly painful to watch, but not because it was bad, because of the well-crafted characters and the series of ill-fated choices they made.
I loved how Lumet made me feel completely sorry for one character, and then could turn that on its head and cause me to hate him the next.
But I can certainly see how people could strongly dislike this film.
The fact that this film didn't exactly make a big noise in the cinematic world and subsequently revive Lumet's career to where it was we feel would confirm to this.
It was simply torturous for us to watch two sane men making such ridiculous mistakes. If the outcome of what they did wasn't so unbelievably tragic it would have been more bearable. The ending was just really torturous to watch. If it was a Shakespearean gig it would have made more sense though.