BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD directed by Sidney Lumet (USA, 2007)
Sadly, this movie title now seems more than a little ironic.
It comes from a Irish proverb (“May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead”)Â and turned out to be Lumet’s swan song (he died in 2011) as well as being one of a long list of films that stand as testament to the greatness of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.
To say that it is a story of a dysfunctional family is a massive understatement.
Hoffman plays Andy Hanson who bullies younger brother Hank (Ethan Hawke) into carrying out the botched robbery of a ‘mom and pop’ store and Albert Finney is the overbearing father who discovers the horrible truth about his sons. Continue reading
