After a cold sex scene, between Andy and Gina, in South America, we know that Andy is a payroll manager who finds himself in a hard economic situation where he badly needs some extra money… We also discover that he has been stealing from his job and using the money to his drug habits… He's also attempting to keep up with his wife, who just might be having an affair…

To solve all their problems, he persuades his brother—a likable loser—to join him in a plan to steal their own parent's small store… Their parents are happily married and proprietors of a jewelry store situated in New York's Westchester County… Sixty thousand dollars is all they'll need to get their life out of desperation…

Three main characters are important in this movie…

First the two brothers… Each of them is a complex individual, threatened with multiple motivations, and sunk into doubts and disappointments… The two are desperate characters, financially and emotionally…

Andy is selfish… He feels that he has never had the love of his father… He is the corrupting influence, turning his brother into an assailant, and his beautiful woman into an adulteress…

Hank is a puppet too weak to resist his brother's wishes… His ex-wife is one of the reasons he needs money as he owes her hundreds in child support…. He longs to regain the confidence he once had with his father…

The third character is their weary and deplorable father Charles Hanson (Albert Finney),especially in the haunting climactic scenes…

Telling you more about the details could lessen the impact of the film, and therefore the entertainment...

Tomei's performance conveys great depth and emotion even with her look, her touch, her particular move…

Lumet's direction is firm, fresh and brutal.

This is one of those films where you actually pull for the "bad" guys because they have gotten themselves in such a mess through their own incompetence, you want them to escape somehow. Of course, there is the fact that through their carelessness, they've gotten their own mother killed. It's the very apotheosis of a snowball rolling out of control, picking up speed. The two principle characters are outstanding. After Capote, I began to notice the work of Philip Seymour Hoffman. He has never disappointed. I only remember Ethan Hawke from his Jack London role in White Fang. He is excellent in this film as the tightly wound brother playing the neurotic foil to Hoffman's overconfident character (he is just as big a mess, but covers it up quite well). We also have Albert Finney who overacts his way through the film as the grieving father. Still, the focus is on the two young men who must face their own guilt and an unanticipated blackmailer. This film had me from beginning to end, and though there is an element of sickness to it, it works extremely well.

You know, there's a decent little sub-genre of films about crimes gone wrong in which the protagonists attempt to evade the law and clear up after their mess. RESERVOIR DOGS could be classed as such, but the real classics of the genre for me are the snow-bound classics FARGO and A SIMPLE PLAN. BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD is another entry in this sub-genre with much in common with the previous movies, but unfortunately it lacks the same kind of power.

While I enjoy the narrative of the story, I have to say that this movie's style is all wrong. The jumping back and forth in time structure makes it feel all over the place and, indeed, that it's a mess. It would have been much better if it had played out completely linear. The look is cold, the style holds you back from the action. The direction is one of my least favourite things about the film, which is a real surprise given that the director is Sidney Lumet, purveyor of such classics as SERPICO and DOG DAY AFTERNOON. Sorry, Sidney; you just haven't got it anymore.

Still, there are reasons to watch here, not least Philip Seymour Hoffman's sleazy, drug-addled businessman who finds his life spiralling out of control. Ethan Hawke is effective as his waster brother, and Albert Finney reliably solid as the siblings' father. Watch out for the lovely Marisa Tomei as Hoffman's girlfriend and the excellent Michael Shannon in a minor role as a bad guy. Lashings of violence and some shocking twists help propel the plot along, but in the end this was a bit of a disappointment and a case of wasted potential as it could have been so much better.