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Before the Devil Knows You're Dead 11 April 08

Section: article

Categories: Film / dvd

I watched this film to the end because it was directed by Sydney Lumet→, who did, for example, Twelve Angry Men in 1957.

I was struggling about how to characterize the film and the word is dumbfuckness. My Safari→ spell-checker doesn’t like the word but it applies to this and many films. The film fails. Its dumbfuckness has no roots, no resonance, it doesn’t tap into what drives us and our society, there is little to sort out and allow to mature in our minds, or at least in mine. There is an attempt to trace the dumbfuckness back to childhood/family incompetence, but that is not convincing in this case and wouldn’t be enough for a film anyway. A brilliant success posed against this failure, as an example, is Pulp Fiction →, and in particular Vincent Vega (Travolta). But dumbfuckness doesn’t apply there, the elements of the film have a chiseled integrity, with the power of plate tectonics→, and resonate deeply, for me at least.

  • Title: Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
  • Directed by: Sydney Lumet
  • Writing credits: Kelly Masterson
  • Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei
  • Year: 2007