Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.

The trailer's tantalizing, and now the first reviews are coming in: "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is at its core a generational tragedy about brothers for whom much has been sacrificed (by parents who operated a modest business) who then conspire to make ends meet by robbing the very hands that nurtured them," writes David D'Arcy in Screen Daily. "This isn't one of [Sidney] Lumet's best, but it's a lament from the heart for a parent who learns what kind of sons he's raised."

But this "wrenching tale has something for anyone who likes their melodrama spiked with palpable tension and genuine suspense," as Lisa Nesselson sees it in Variety.

Updated through 9/14.

For the Hollywood Reporter's Frank Scheck, this is "a smashing return to form... Pungently atmospheric, brilliantly textured and featuring superb performances from every performer in parts big and small, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead might not quite rank with such classics as Dog Day Afternoon and countless other films by Lumet, but it does make thrillingly clear that he's still at the top of his game." At 83, too.

Screens next week in Toronto.

Update, 9/14: "Lumet takes noirish genre-conventions and cleverly combines them with one of those family pressure-cooker dramas from Todd Field or Vadim Perelman," writes Kurt Halfyard at Twitch. "The result is something that leans to the former but is pleasantly elevated by the latter."

Posted by dwhudson at September 7, 2007 4:26 PM