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. **
Breaking and Entering
May 10th, 2007
Jude Law looks a lot better when he’s lit by the Mediterranean sun, wearing a striped t-shirt, and steering a sail boat than in a suit and tie under phosphorescent lights in a London architect’s office. This is only one of the many lessons to be drawn from Anthony Mighella’s first feature as sole writer/director since Truly Madly Deeply (1991). He was better off adapting Ondaatje and Highsmith: the convoluted, contrived plot of this class struggle/domestic relationship psychobabble adultery crapfest is almost as lame as the dialogue. Juliette Binoche (hampered by a Sophie grade Eastern European accent) and Robin Wright Penn manage occasional moments of grace, but it’s Vera Farmiga, in her all-too brief scenes as a thieving King’s Cross hooker, who gives the hackneyed proceedings the only glimpses of real vitality.
Breaking and Entering. Anthony Minghella, 2006. *
The Lookout
March 27th, 2007
Joseph Gordon-Levitt played the argot-spouting teenage gumshoe who held the excellent Brick together; now he’s back for more crime with a noirish thriller about a guy with brain damage who is drawn into a heist. A former college hockey star, Chris Pratt (Gordon-Levitt) had a serious car accident, and now he can’t keep his “sequencing” straight, he’s rooming with a blind man (Jeff Daniels), and instead of living high off fat cat daddy’s dough, he’s mopping floors at the local farm bank. Enter no-goodnick Gary Spargo (Matthew Goode), with a dame named Luvlee Lemons (Isla Fisher) and a goon called Bone in tow. There’s more than a little After Dark, My Sweet in this tale, and Gordon-Levitt sells his character’s frustrating, infuriating brain malfunctions. In the end, I found The Lookout too pat and tidy; it’s slick but forgettable. Marcy enjoyed it a good deal more than me so she’s handling official About.com review duties. The Lookout opens on Friday.
The Lookout. Scott Frank, 2007. ***
