Just got back from seeing Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.
It wasn’t a bad movie. Again, another case of wonderful acting from the entire cast but generally a movie that felt like something that had covered ground we’ve seen many times before. Nothing in it came as a surprise and, personally, if you want to see a better movie of the same type see A Simple Plan.
It seemed to me that those responsible for the movie knew this was well-tread ground and tried to spice it up by adding a series of completely unnecessary and, ultimately, plot-line trouble exposing flashbacks. The flashbacks jump around so often that you often wondered what the heck the point was. It would go from present day to a week ago, to 3 days ago, to 1 day ago, to 4 days ago then back to the present. Just tell the story and stop with the circus tricks.
This is yet another well-received movie that I’d suggest most people skip. It’s just not worth the bother. Well, okay, if you’re curious to see Marisa Tomei topless for much of the movie — and wow she has a tremendous body — then perhaps it’s worth a DVD rental. Aside from that you’ve got Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke and Albert Finney. This could have been a contender.
