It’s nothing short of inspiring when an 83-year-old director makes one of the most entertaining and energetic movies of the year, and that’s the case here with Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows Your Dead. I only heard of this film in recent weeks, and it’s definitely stayed under the radar. I didn’t know what to expect walking into this one, and I couldn’t be happier with the results. The movie feels like the work of a young up-and-coming filmmaker, with its fast pace, time-jumping editing, and never-ending plot twists. What this movie proves more than anything, just like Clint Eastwood and Million Dollar Baby did a few years ago, is that a director, even in his 70’s and 80’s, can always be learning and experimenting and constantly honing his craft.

The movie reminded me a lot of Sam Raimi’s 1998 chiller A Simple Plan, about a group of people who find a sack of money beside a small fallen airplane, money that destroys the lives of everyone involved. Characters going after a huge sum of cash in the wrong ways always makes for riveting storylines, and that goes for the involving narrative of Before the Devil Knows Your Dead. Two brothers, Andrew and Hank (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke), are both strapped for cash, Hank more so than Andrew. When Andrew asks Hank to rob a jewelry store, Hank is skeptical at first but willfully takes the opportunity to get a sweet sixty thousand dollars. The main problem is that the jewelry store is that of their mom and dad, and Hank realizes he needs to hire help in order not to be recognized and caught for the crime. Everything goes wrong, however, when the man that Hank hires ends up killing the woman in the jewelry store upon the faulty attempt to rob her, and the woman in the store, thought to a friend of the parents, turns out to be Andrew and Hank’s own mother. This is all revealed just in the first twenty minutes or so, and things spiral further and further downward for the two brothers, as their malicious idea to scam their parents’ store ends up backfiring completely and unforgivably.

Aside from a few select moments with Andrew spending time with a drug dealer, there is not a single dull moment from beginning to end in the movie. It uses an appopriate editing style that takes us forward and backward in time, allowing us to slowly discover secrets and information about different characters. Every character in the film is complex and interesting. Hawke plays the character with the greatest conscience, and Hoffman plays the character with the most to lose. Their interaction is fascinating, especially after the robbery goes completely wrong and Andrew has to try to amend the situation. Hank is scared and bewildered about what he’s done, and he doesn’t have any ideas when it comes to fixing the messed-up situation.

To complicate matters, the boys’ father Charles (Albert Finney) is set on finding who was involved with the robbery and murder of his wife, and this makes for that classic case of dramatic irony. We sit there knowing his two sons were behind everything, as he slowly starts connecting the dots. In our hearts we know that Charles needs to know the truth, but we are the same time scared about what he is going to do when he finds out. It’s ultimate Greek tragedy. How does a father react to something like this, when his own flesh and blood are behind the murder of his wife and their own mother? The results in the movie may be less expected than you think.

The performances are all stellar, with Hoffman coming off the best, as the repressed, self-loathing, but intelligent Andrew, who seems pretty confident in his robbery plan. He does the best he can to keep his composure as problems begin to duplicate, but we can see even in the earlier scenes just how sad this guy is. He has a few emotionally charged moments that really get the blood boiling, and there is no shortage of great scenes with him sharing the screen with Hawke and Finney. Hawke is terrific as the brother Hank, and he is a perfect choice because he really does seem like somebody who wouldn’t be able to successfully pull off a robbery. When his life is threatened later in the movie, one can really see the fear on his face. There is a moment when a gun is held to his head that you just absolutely feel for the guy. Finney is always good, and here he plays a guy who could easily cower from the world but instead steps up and tries to make something of the justice he deserves. The final decision this character makes seems entirely appopriate regarding the circumstances, when at the same time Finney never takes the character too far in his emotional responses to his actions.

But the one who’s most effective, and who makes the movie worth watching from beginning to end, is not any of the actors, it’s the director Sidney Lumet. I’m just in complete awe of this guy. His first feature was 12 Angry Men, starring Henry Fonds, which was released fifty, yes, FIFTY years ago. He went on to direct such classics as Dog Day Afternoon, and Network, the latter of which being one of my all-time favorite movies. He hasn’t really done anything important in the last twenty years, but here he returns like a master, taking us through a magnificent story with splendid visuals, clever blocking, and great rhythm. He does a wonderful job here, and here’s hoping for another twenty years of work from this guy.

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead needs no more words to describe. It works best if you go in knowing nothing. I didn’t even know it was a robbery, and, boy, was I in for a treat. I love films about characters who make one bad decision, a decision that leads to more bad decisions, ultimately leaving the characters wounded and fallen, if not dead. It doesn’t hurt when a film that deals with these themes stars people like Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, and Albert Finney, and is directed by Sidney Lumet. Following Ridley Scott’s return to form last week with the brilliant American Gangster, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is an equally impressive return to form for Lumet, who hasn’t made a movie this awesome in years. This is one fantastic movie.

4 stars (out of 4)