"Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"
Directed by Sidney Lumet
USA, 2007
Rave reviews unexplainably abound for this contrived and soulless exercise in alinear storytelling, but Pulp Fiction and Memento this is not. In fact, this film probably has more telegraphed moves and fake "edginess" than anything else so critically well-received since Crash. More than one idiot online has actually compared Devil's bungled jewelry heist by brothers who look nothing at all alike plot to Greek tragedy, but the only connection there I can see is that Albert Finney, Ethan Hawke and even the usually-reliable Philip Seymour Hoffman will have you asking for "another cup of hemlock, please" after taking in their acting histrionics and correspondingly pained facial expressions for a couple of hours. Grade: "F" as in F. Murray Abraham Syndrome.
Directed by Sidney Lumet
USA, 2007
Rave reviews unexplainably abound for this contrived and soulless exercise in alinear storytelling, but Pulp Fiction and Memento this is not. In fact, this film probably has more telegraphed moves and fake "edginess" than anything else so critically well-received since Crash. More than one idiot online has actually compared Devil's bungled jewelry heist by brothers who look nothing at all alike plot to Greek tragedy, but the only connection there I can see is that Albert Finney, Ethan Hawke and even the usually-reliable Philip Seymour Hoffman will have you asking for "another cup of hemlock, please" after taking in their acting histrionics and correspondingly pained facial expressions for a couple of hours. Grade: "F" as in F. Murray Abraham Syndrome.
