Before the Devil Knows Your Dead

‘Devil’ infiltrates cast of this film
TWO BROTHERS (Ethan Hawke, left, and Philip Seymour Hoffman) plan a jewel robbery in “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.”

Looking for a good movie to gather the family around with a bowl of popcorn?
Please, don’t pick up “Before the Devil Knows Your Dead.”
Never has there been a cast of nasty, disturbing, overwrought, ill-equipped, frightening, blood-thirsty characters.
Nobody, but nobody, in this film would you want visiting your home. Well maybe one person, but she is shot and on life support early in the film.
Actually, “Before the Devil” uses the multiple flashback technique, showing the same scene from different perspectives.
We all thought Quentin Tarantino was an innovator when he did a similar technique in “Pulp Fiction.”
But even though “Before the Devil” is violent and cruel as well, it doesn’t even approach Tarantino’s epic.
Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Andy Hanson. Ethan Hawke is his brother, Hank. First, you have to swallow the idea these two are brothers.
Both are in need of more money than their real estate jobs provide. Big brother Andy has a great idea, rob a mom and pop jewelry store. The fact the store is insured makes it “a victimless crime,” he says.
But this isn’t just any mom and pop store. The mom and pop in this store happens to be owned by their own parents.
Now I’m a bit hazy about all the reasoning behind this. The Hoffman character can’t be involved in the robbery because he would be recognized. But baby brother Hawke character can be involved. Huh?
But Hawke is uneasy about the whole situation. Who wouldn’t? So he hires someone else to do the actual robbery, while he sits in the get-away car, wearing a wig and false mustache.
The robbery scene is really well staged, as is much of this film. The robbery doesn’t go well. The mom, played much of the film on life support, is Danielle Hanson.
So the two brothers spend most of the film crying, screaming, shaky, rude and crude, because they botched a robbery at their parents’ store that ended with their mother’s death.
They also reason there’s nothing to trace them to this horrible crime, until the sister of the hired gun gets her boyfriend to blackmail the pair. He is spookily played by Michael Shannon.
How mean are everyone in the cast? Hawke’s character has a daughter by a former wife. The Hawke character, before the robbery, promises he will come up with more than $100 for her to go on a class trip. She’s played by Sarah Livingston.
After the robbery, when he can’t get her the money, she screams and pouts and calls him a loser. Hey kid, your grandmother just died in a cruel, violent, terrible way. Why do you care so much about a crummy class trip?
Albert Finney plays the grieving Charles Hanson and Marisa Tomei is the luscious wife of the Hoffman character, but is having an affair with the Hawke character.
Anyone who you might think will be killed and a few more, are killed, in the most violent manner.
That might not be so bad, but there is no redemption here.
Sidney Lumet, directs. His past efforts include “Network,” “Dog Day Afternoon” and “12 Angry Men.”
Maybe he could rename “Before the Devil Knows Your Dead” “A Lot More than 12 Angry Men.”
FROM WEEKENDER, Aug. 29, 2008

BEFORE THE DEVIL
KNOWS YOUR DEAD
• Rated R for strong, graphic sexuality, nudity, violence, drug use and language
• Runtime: 118 minutes
• Directed by Sidney Lumet, written by Kelly Master
• 2 stars out of 5

Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Take plunge: See ‘Diving Bell’
Jean-Dominique Bauby at a magazine photo shoot in a scene from "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."

“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” is a gripping, powerful film, without one single gunshot, no car chases, nary a fistfight and not one character jumps from one rooftop to another.
Also known as “Le Scaphandre et le Papillon,” it’s the true story of the swinging editor of the French Elle magazine.
He’s Jean-Dominique Bauby, played by Mathieu Amalric.
Jean picks his son up from his estranged wife one day, must pull off the road because he doesn’t feel well and has a massive stroke.
He wakes up weeks later in a hospital, feeling like he is encased in a deep-sea diving suit, hence the film title.
He can’t speak. Except for one eye, he can’t move anything.
Brooklyn-born director Julian Schnabel must meet the challenge of telling the story of a man confined to a hospital bed most of the time who can do virtually nothing for himself.
But boy, does he do a fabulous job. There are a few flashbacks, but much of it takes place in the present.
Jean’s mouth is deformed. A doctor must sew one eye shut. He communicates with the help of a speech therapist, played by Marie-Josee Croze, who could be my therapist anytime.
She arranges the alphabet from the most-used letter to the least. She starts to recite the alphabet until she gets to the letter of the first word he wants to say, then he blinks. Then she starts over, him blinking at the second letter.
Through this system, Croze helps Jean write a book about his life in complete helplessness.
Part of the film uses a technique used in an old “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” TV episode in which a man is paralyzed after an automobile accident on a rural road and must wait for help.
We see through Jean’s eyes when he wakes up and realizes disgustedly he is in a hospital.
His blurred vision eventually sharpens. We blink when he blinks. (A cameraman actually placed his hands over the camera lens in a blinking motion.)
We hear his thoughts. We are there when he sees his deformed face while riding in a wheelchair down a hallway, his image reflected in the windows.
There are a couple of truly unforgettable scenes. One involves his former wife, Celine, played by Emmanuelle Seigner. She remains loyal to him, bringing their children to see him. She must field questions via the telephone from Jean’s girlfriend, who can’t bring herself to visit him in his condition.
Another memorable scene is a flashback, when Jean shaves his ailing father, played by the remarkable Max von Sydow. Now here’s a guy who has looked 80 for the past 20 years but still does a remarkable job of acting. He does well in Swedish, American and French films. Not bad.
Jean woke himself each morning at 5:30, memorized what he wanted to write that day, then dictated to his therapist, one blinking letter at a time. It became “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.”
He died weeks after the book was published.
He was a remarkable man chronicled in a remarkable film.

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
• Directed by Julian Schnabel, screenplay by Ronald Harwood
• Rated PG-13 for nudity, sexual content, some language
• Runtime: 112 minutes
• Spoken in French
• 3 1/2 stars out of 4

August Rush

Warner Bros.
JAMIA SIMONE Nash and Freddie Highmore in “August Rush.”

'August Rush' a stretched fairy tale
'August Rush' is a beautifully filmed, sensitive picture that's set in fairy-tale mode.
Unfortunately, with its Dickensesque gritty qualities, the two factions just don't mix.
The story involves Lyla Novacek, played by Keri Russell. She's a brilliant cellist who is finding success in New York City.
After a concert and party, she meets Louis Connelly, played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Louis is Irish and plays bass in an Irish rock band. His voice is a melody itself and the two fall in love forever, even if they don't see each other for years.
They agree to meet later, but fate and the necessary plotline makes that impossible.
But their night together on a rooftop produces a child.
Fate is a big part of this film and as a result, Lyla is hit by a car and dad (William Sadler) tells her the baby is lost.
She learns 11 years later, as dad lies dying, the child isn't really dead. He forged her signature on papers giving the child up for adoption. (it was that easy.) But in this 19th-century London tale transposed to modern New York, the baby ends up in an orphanage where he is picked on because he hears music wherever he goes.
Freddie Highmore plays Evan Taylor, who is enamored with sounds and translates them in his head to music. It is in these scenes the film shines. Something magical happens.
But of course, the orphanage does nothing to encourage the boy's interests, so he runs away.
It is there Evan meets a young street musician and is enthralled by his guitar. He wants to reach out and touch it. The musician takes Evan back to where he and plenty of other homeless kids live at a condemned theater.
If you can believe this, all homeless kids are musical prodigies. The Fagan of the group, played by red-haired Robin Williams, sees something special in Evan, whom he renams August Rush after the words on a truck that drives by.
Evan, er, August, runs away and ends up at a church where the pastor gets him into Julliard. August writes a classical piece and the instructors decide to play it at the end of a concert in Central Park. And who is also playing at the event? Would you believe his mother who is now searching the streets for him?
And guess who also happens to be around? Do I have to tell you?
But can it end that neatly? Not quite, 'Red' Williams must return to snatch August away. But somehow, it all works out and young August magically arrives to conduct his piece in a tuxedo! Wow! Maybe his fairy godmother made it out of mice!
The love of music comes through in this movie, even if the notes he plays don't always correspond to what you hear. But young Freddie seems to be sleeping through part of this film and the storyline will have your rolling your eyes. At least mine did.

AUGUST RUSH
* Written by Nick Castley and James V. Hart
* Directed by Kirsten Sheridan
* Rated PG for thematic elements, mild violence
* Runtime: 114 minutes
* 2 stars out of 4