Keswick Film Club - Before The Devil Knows You're Dead

Synopsis

Tonight’s treat is shown as a Tribute to Sydney Lumet who died earlier this year. He directed this one in 2008 at the age of 84, and showed here that ‘’the director of 12 Angry Men, Serpico and The Verdict was not only still working, but doing some of his best work’ - Empire. Two brothers (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke) with very different money problems agree to rob a jewellery store—owned by their parents - which goes horribly wrong. The remainder of the film, flashing back and forth, takes us into an investigation of those affected by the robbery, revealing a very tangled web indeed. The film’s direction, writing and acting combine to give us a tense thriller with ‘a texture more akin to real life than Hollywood. Superior fare, packed with insight and suspense.’ - Time Out, which left Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian needing ‘hours to relax my tensed-up muscles’.