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Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
THINKFilm

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 84 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
6.9 out of 10
based on 37 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 130 votes
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Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for a scene of strong graphic sexuality, nudity, violence, drug use and language

Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, and Marisa Tomei

Andy, an overextended broker, lures his younger brother--Hank--into a larcenous scheme: the pair will rob a suburban mom-and-pop jewelry store that appears to be the quintessential easy target. The problem is, the store owners are Andy and Hank's actual mom and pop--and--when the seemingly perfect crime goes awry, the damage lands right at their doorstep. (THINKFilm)


GENRE(S): Crime  |  Drama  |  Suspense/Thriller  
WRITTEN BY: Kelly Masterson  
DIRECTED BY: Sidney Lumet  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: April 15, 2008 
Theatrical: October 26, 2007 
RUNNING TIME: 117 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
Village Voice J. Hoberman
The movie grabs hold and runs you through the wringer.
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100
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Mesmerizing.
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100
Christian Science Monitor Robert Koehler
One of the great American films of the past decade, and the crowning masterpiece of Lumet's long career.
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100
New York Post Lou Lumenick
This flick is fast and ferocious, his (Sidney Lumet) sharpest and best since "Prince of the City" (1980) - and surely one of the year's finest.
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100
Slate Dana Stevens
Offers the rare pleasure of watching a major director return to his own material and rework it 30 years later. This story of a pitiful jewel heist gone so profoundly wrong that it approaches the scope of Greek tragedy isn't quite a remake of "Dog Day Afternoon."
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100
Washington Post Ann Hornaday
In addition to being a study in great acting, this is a study in great directing.
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100
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
A superb crime melodrama.
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100
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
A wicked deconstruction of a dysfunctional clan: brothers at each other's throats; a father whose legacy is anger and betrayal; an unfaithful wife; a history of deceit. It's a horror show of hatred and festering psychic wounds.
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100
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Its virtues are velocity, energy, innovative storytelling - and something that seems even more the province of young directors: a certain heartlessness and ironic distance in the tone.
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100
Boston Globe Ty Burr
Compact, nasty, and altogether wonderful, a tale of brotherly greed and New York comeuppance that shows an old dog dusting off old tricks using new technology.
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91
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Emotionally brutal, ferociously acted, crafted with unflagging expertise and relentlessly locked in its vision of human darkness, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is as grim and despairing as any tragedy by Sophocles or Shakespeare.
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90
Film Threat Rick Kisonak
Bleak, weirdly witty at times and unrelentingly suspenseful, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is the cinematic equivalent of a perfect storm.
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90
Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
This is no nostalgia trip taken by an 83-year-old director. It's a fierce, hot slap of a movie, a shameless melodrama with bite.
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90
Time Richard Schickel
It is, like quite a few Lumet pictures, rather small in scale, easy to overlook. But I think it is time to gather around a director who has embraced his octogenarian bleakness and sing his praises. Ultimately, I think you'll laugh a lot at what he has wrought here -- but only well after the movie is over and the full scale of its perversity settles into your bones.
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90
New York Magazine David Edelstein
His (Sidney Lumet) touch in Before the Devil is so sure, so perfectly weighted, that it’s hard to imagine him capable of making a bad movie. The thing is just enthralling.
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90
The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck
Pungently atmospheric, brilliantly textured and featuring superb performances from every performer in parts big and small.
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90
Variety Lisa Nesselson
The wrenching tale has something for anyone who likes their melodrama spiked with palpable tension and genuine suspense.
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89
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
While the evil that men do to one another in this film may well be rooted in the Cain-like enabling of original sin from one doomed brother to another, the final familial tragedy feels exactly like classic Lumet.
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88
USA Today Claudia Puig
One bad idea can unravel and ruin lives in unimaginably horrific ways.That's the concept underlying the riveting Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, a sharply acted and highly entertaining morality play.
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88
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
A dynamite film that ranks with the year's best.
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88
TV Guide Ken Fox
The true star of this nerve-racking family crime drama, shot with a minimum of fuss by Ron Fortunato, is playwright and first-time screenwriter Kelly Masterson's deft script, which carefully develops each fatally flawed character and tells their stories in achronological flashbacks that seamlessly fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.
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88
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Arguably Lumet's best film in 20 years.
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88
Premiere Glenn Kenny
The action is violent, messy, and threaded through with dark humor. This is a movie for grownups, for sure, but it has a mulish kick that most such pictures consider themselves to tasteful to aspire to.
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83
The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
Ultimately, the film is just a smart caper picture with some good performances, but at times it's VERY smart, and Hoffman's performance in particular is one of the most natural and unexpectedly affecting that he's given in years.
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80
The New York Times A.O. Scott
Curiously exhilarating. Some of this comes from the simple thrill of witnessing something, or rather everything, done well.
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80
The New Yorker David Denby
Furious and entertaining little morality play.
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80
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
This is not a drama of shadings, but of ever-increasing intensity.
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80
Empire Helen O'Hara
Bleak, brutal and quite possibly brilliant, this is a triumphant return to form for Lumet and further proof that Hoffman is on an incredible winning streak.
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75
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Atmosphere is the main virtue with which this "Devil" can tempt us.
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75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
This is an adrenaline-pumping, devilishly well-made thriller set against the downfall of an American family.
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75
ReelViews James Berardinelli
Philip Seymour Hoffman is in fine form as a man teetering on the edge.
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75
Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
What you’re left with, finally, is the pleasure of a wily director’s company. In much the same way John Huston defied convention and predictability in the third act of his directorial career, with films as odd and fresh as “Wise Blood” and “Prizzi’s Honor,” Lumet is doing the same, right now.
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70
LA Weekly Ella Taylor
The only player in this tawdry round-robin game who moved or seduced me in any way was Andy’s poor, hapless Gina. Tomei’s an ordinary beauty... But she has real screen presence and range, and her neglected wife is an artful inversion of her Oscar-winning role as Danny DeVito’s pert squeeze in "My Cousin Vinny."
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67
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
The result is not a first-class film noir but a top-grade acting class. You admire it without enjoying it.
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50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
The problem is not that the director is working but that his latest film is working too hard. Way too hard – this thing is melodrama running a marathon.
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50
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Even though it's scripted by a woman (Kelly Masterson), this tale of buried family resentments rising to the surface as the brothers plot to rob their parents' jewelry store is concerned only with the guys, and it's marred by an uncharacteristically mannered performance by Albert Finney as the father.
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50
Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
The evident strengths and laudable intentions of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (and even the appeal of Marisa Tomei in her undies) are overwhelmed by an implausible plot verging on unintentional comedy and a panoply of Noo Yawk dirt-bag supporting characters who might've seemed awkward on a 1993 episode of "NYPD Blue."
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What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 6.9 (out of 10) based on 130 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Penelope R. gave it a1:
This movie is absurd: a relentless tumble from one horrible sequence of events to the next In essence, the viewer is inundated with each of the character's sins, ranging from homosexual heroin liaisons; to inter-family infidelities; to its filicidal climax... The characters lack any humanity, are impossible to sympathize with--particularly once the viewer, half an hour in, starts to understand that they are merely the author's little self-destruct machines. By the end, my partner and I were amusing ourselves by guessing in what contrived way it was about get worse. Correctly guessing, I might add. Predictability. Another of its sins. Only our shock-hungry generation cynical could buy this depiction of characters plowing so purposefully to their dooms as a morality tale. Depressiobitionist is more like it.

Dirk gave it a2:
Terrible. Ethan Hawk is a lame actor and Hoffman made a mistake taking on this role. Don't waste your time or your money on this rubbish.

Ajay Z. gave it an8:
An excellent film, well-made, taut, and believable even while unbelievable. Excellent acting all around and we see a side of Marisa Tomei previously hidden before.

Liz gave it a10:
Excellent film!

Tanya M. gave it a1:
Over all quite boring, endless flashbacks get so repetitive that leaves you wanting the movie to just get to the point already! and it takes a while before it does. Very surprised it got such a high rating here since it's below average at best.

trfeg yhhg gave it a10:
I love this movie, one of my favorites. Hoffman and Hawke do a good job.

Joseph L. gave it a9:
Excellent movie. Very depressing, but really well put together.

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