Benjamin's Stash: Video Pick of the Week

      Getaway opens this Friday in theaters, so this week's pick will be devoted to an Ethan Hawke film from my collection. I was gonna go with Training Day, but that would've been too easy. I decided to go with one that went under the radar and most of you probably haven't seen.

      Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is about two brothers, Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Hank (Ethan Hawke) Hanson. Andy is an overextended broker in desperate need of some cash and Hank isn't much better off either, so when Andy hatches a plan to rob their parent's modest jewelry store, it seems like a foolproof way to make a quick buck. Well, at first it does. When the robbery proves to be a complete disaster, it isn't long before loyalties start to shift. On top of that, Andy and Hank's father, Charles (Albert Finney), is determined to make the unidentified robbers pay for their crime. 

      The film's title comes from the Irish toast, "May you be in Heaven half an hour before the Devil knows you're dead." Filmed in a non-linear format that shows us repeat scenes from a different perspective each time, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead isn't on the level of a "Quick Buck plan gone wrong" masterpiece like Fargo or other non-linear format films such as Reservoir Dogs or Memento. That said, this is still a very engaging thriller and one that marked a strong return for the great director Sidney Lumet. I love a good "plan gone wrong" story told from multiple perspectives, and the way the film transitions from Andy to the same scene again, this time from Hank's viewpoint, adds some additional suspense. It gets messy at times, but that's the point. We're witnessing two characters who think they have it in the bag, and that they'll be in and out with the heist, but then find themselves in over their heads once the shit hits the fan. There are certainly a few scenes I would've have trimmed up just a bit, but Hoffman and Hawke deliver two strong lead performances and there's some fine supporting work from Marisa Tomei, Albert Finney and Michael Shannon who I actually forgot was in this film. If there's two things Lumet knows well, it's story and character, and here is no exception.