Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is a pow­er­ful, elec­tric return to form for the 83 year-old Sid­ney Lumet, direc­tor of such canon­i­cal clas­sics as 12 Angry Men, Ser­pico, Net­work, and, uh, The Wiz?

Kelly Masterson’s screen­play tells the high-tension tale of a pair of wholly doomed broth­ers as a non-linear nar­ra­tive from mul­ti­ple points of view. Each jump in time and p.o.v. is accom­pa­nied by a thrilling edit­ing tech­nique I haven’t seen any­where else but Den­nis Hopper’s Easy Rider: the cur­rent and sub­se­quent scene ric­o­chet back and forth in increas­ing speed until we’re hur­tled through time into another frag­ment of the narrative.

Sid­ney Lumet’s mas­ter­class in block­ing, Fig. A

The movie is full of exam­ples of a fine direc­tor know­ing how to use the form to the story’s advan­tage. For one exam­ple of how the com­po­si­tion of a shot reflects the sub­text of the scene, note how that when­ever Andy (Philip Sey­mour Hoff­man) and Hank (Ethan Hawk) plot their scheme in the bar, Andy phys­i­cally looms over Hank and dom­i­nates the frame with his bulk.

Star­ring Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, and Marisa Tomei’s boobs

The act­ing is great all around, includ­ing a dev­as­tat­ing turn from Albert Finney as a bit­terly dis­ap­pointed father, and Marisa Tomei as a woman who cast her lot with two of the worst prospects on the planet. And in case you think Hawke and Hoff­man are mis­cast as sib­lings, well… just watch.

Watch the trailer.

Buy the DVD from Ama­zon and kick back a few pen­nies to The Dork Report.

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