Before The Devil Knows You're Dead

Since everyone seems to have either left the city or gone into hiding, I headed down to the Angelika last Friday to see Sidney Lumet's Before The Devil Knows You're Dead. The movie has gotten exceptional reviews, particularly for the performances of Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It was good, not great. I appreciated how cold and brutal it was, but perhaps even a little too heavy? And while Philip Seymour Hoffman is great, I definitely enjoy when his heavy-set, hard-luck with issues schlubs have a halo of good humor surrounding them. Not so here. It was actually Albert Finney who I thought was the most excellent of the lot (for all of the rave reviews of Ethan Hawke's acting, has the bar for praise been set at believable?). And while the opening scene with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Marisa Tomei may have been completely gratuitous (sure, we understand his motivation), if Sidney Lumet wanted to make a two hour movie of Marisa Tomei walking around in her underwear, well, I'd watch it.