Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
September 22nd, 2007
Veteran director Sidney Lumet sends Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke to Westchester for a botched robbery in this grim family crime drama scripted by playwright Kelly Masterson. “It’s a hell of story,” Lumet boasted at the press conference following the New York Film Festival screening, “it’s masterfully plotted.”
The rest of my review of Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is up on About.com.
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. Sidney Lumet, 2007. **
Infamous
March 5th, 2007
After Capote, this movie didn’t stand a chance. It’s better in some respects and worse in others–Toby Jones is a swishier, freakier Truman than Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christine Keener was a much better Harper Lee than Sandra Bullock, the production and direction of Infamous are slightly more daring but not as slick. (Continuing these comparisons should be fascinating fodder for a film class, but I’ll leave it at that.) The story about the outsider writer seduced by his outsider subject, however, is almost beat for beat the same, and Infamous, whatever its merits, can’t help but seem redundant at this point. Tough luck.
Infamous. Douglas McGrath, 2006. ***
