Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead

I prefer Sidney Lumet’s previous feature, the neglected Find Me Guilty. But this ambitious and well-directed crime thriller, with an intricate flashback structure redolent of Reservoir Dogs, gives Philip Seymour Hoffman a fascinatingly ambiguous character (a passive-aggressive corporate executive and drug addict) to work with, and he does wonders with the part. Marisa Tomei’s character, on the other hand, the executive’s wife and the lover of his softer loser brother (Ethan Hawke), is strictly standard-issue. 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. R, 123 min. (JR)

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