![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Review: Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)
This movie started off as a crime thriller and ended as an emotional drama. Either way, I thought it was a pretty good movie. The cast was pretty stacked, and the story unfolded in a way that kept the audience intrigued. I would definitely recommend it, but it does end with a dark tone.
Spoilers.
Story
The story is as follows. Andy and Hank were both in a bit of financial trouble. Andy wanted to run away to Brazil with his wife Gina, and Hank was always behind on his child support payments. Andy's proposal was to rob their parents' jewellery story.
Hank hired Bobby Lasorda to go into the store because he knew he wouldn't have the guts to rob his own parents. Bobby went in to rob the store, and ended up shooting Nanette (Andy and Hank's mother). Bobby died as well.
Afterwards, the audience finds out more about the strained relationship between Andy and his family. He'd been treated poorly by his father, and didn't really care if he'd been killed during the robbery. However, on that day, Charles had his driving test and so Nanette was opening th store instead. During the funeral, Andy and Charles acknowledged that they never had a good relationship, but Charles did nothing to atone for how he treated his son.
Hank had been clumsy in covering up his actions. He'd left his CD in the car he'd rented, Bobby's girlfriend was a witness that could pin Bobby's death as being related to Hank. Andy also found out that Hank had been sleeping with his wife.
Near the end of the movie, Andy basically went on a nihilistic streak. Gina had left him. He then went to his drug dealer to steal money and kill people he was at it. He then went with Hank to meet Chris and Dex to pay them off. However, his anger was bubbling to a boiling point and he was going to shoot Hank for all the trouble he'd caused him in his life. Instead, Chris shot Andy. It's assumed that Hank ran away.
Andy was transported to the hospital, where he apologized to Charles, saying that Nanette's death was an accident. Charles appeared to forgive Andy, but suffocated him to death, either implying that he didn't really forgive Andy, or that he'd just despised Andy too much throughout his lifetime to want to put up with him anymore.
The story was presented in a non-linear manner up until Charles started tailing Andy and Hank. The way the story would unfold was that the movie would go to a particular place in time before the robbery, and take us through events up to and including the robbery. For the events that were repeated (such as Hank driving away and calling Andy from a pay phone, or Andy and Hank's discussion about robbing their parents' store), new aspects of the conversation or event would be revealed each time. For that, I applaud the editors because they managed to repeat events over and over again without making it feel like I was watching the same thing. Each time I saw the conversation between Hank and Andy in Andy's office, I was watching another part of the conversation that was not covered before, and gave me more information about the situation.
Towards the end, Andy was flying off the rails emotionally. His life was falling apart around him, but we got to understand how Hank and Charles always got on his nerves a bit, and he only tolerated them (with the help of drugs). However, now that he was in full rage mode, he definitely wasn't thinking straight, and that was what led him to take extreme actions, such as killing whoever got in his way.
This story reminded me a bit of Korean and Japanese thrillers, in which there is always some aspect of the story that is a little over the top. In doing so, it helps bring a certain issue into the spotlight. In this case, it would be Andy's contempt for his family.
Production
Cinematography
I felt that the cinematography was a little grainy for a 2007 movie. It reminded me a bit of 21 grams, which was a little older than this movie, but also a bit grainy. It wasn't a huge issue though, seeing as how this was mostly a drama.
The grainy appearance also made the movie seem a little like a memory, like Andy's entire life was bad dream, which was probably how he saw it.
Acting
The cast for this movie was pretty stacked. I do admit that I had a bit of a tough time taking Philip Seymour Hoffman seriously as a suave smooth guy. He didn't have the appearance. But I have to give credit where credit's due. His acting was A+++ and he really made the character of Andy Hanson his own. He was able to define Andy Hanson with his internal thoughts and struggles rather than his outward appearance.
Music
I thought the background music was pretty good for transitioning the story from a thriller into a more serious emotional drama. It made me focus on the characters' personalities and why they did the things that they did.
Characters
Andy Hanson
At the beginning of the movie, Andy was barely holding himself together. He was estranged from his family, and only occasionally spoke to his brother. He only seemed to speak to Hank because of his business proposition. To me, I felt that Andy wanted to use Hank as a shield. I don't think Andy was actually afraid that he'd be recognized in the plaza; I think that he just wanted to make Hank do all the dirty work.
Andy was also knee deep in a drug habit, and was apparently negligent in his job. When his company was audited, the auditors had found that the company had been paying two employees that had been terminated. I don't know if this was true negligence, or if those two employees were actually puppet accounts for Andy to embezzle money from the company.
Andy felt that he was still in a loving relationship with Gina, unaware that she was actively having an affair with Hank. He was hoping to accumulate enough money, and then the two of them would flee to Brazil and leave all of their problems behind.
After Hank messed up the robbery, Andy had to pick up all of the loose pieces. Not only did they have to evade suspicion of being behind the robbery, but they were also mourning their mother. Nanette was probably the only one holding the family together, seeing as how Andy had a poor relationship with his other family members. Now that she was gone, Andy could no longer tolerate the others.
Charles gave a half-assed apology when apologizing for his poor parenting, and that was a huge blow to Andy. At that point, he admitted to Gina that he felt like he was never part of the little club. At that point, I think Andy stopped caring about anything. He didn't even care that Gina was leaving him because he'd expected that no one would ever love him.
I think he decided to help Hank just in case it would keep him safe. But when Chris and Dex seemed to be too much trouble, he figured maybe he should just kill them, and then kill Hank too.
Although Andy hated Charles, he was truly sorry for killing his mother, and he took the opportunity to apologize while in the hospital. However, he'd already gone too far in Charles' books, and was suffocated to death.
I sympathized with Andy because he never felt like he was part of the family. Charles said he was hard on Andy because he was his first, but that's also kind of a bullshit reason now that he was a grown adult. That being said, the idea of teaming up with his younger brother to rob their own parents also didn't seem like a good idea, especially since I think he should've known that his brother was as careless as he was. Overall, I think that Andy was a very interesting character. He was flawed, and made mistakes, but that's what made him easier to sympathize with.
Hank Hanson
Hank was Andy's younger brother, and not a very capable man. He had a poor relationship with his ex-wife, and his relationship with his daughter was souring because he couldn't pay child support, and also likely because the ex-wife was badmouthing him. They would often get into arguments with the daughter within hearing range.
Hank had to agree with Andy's proposal before he was told what it was. When he found out they'd be robbing his parents' store, he was reluctant, but he'd given his word, and Andy temporariliy blinded him with a stack of $2,000.
Unfortunately, Hank made a lot of mistakes. He'd hired outside help, which was already a issue. He'd left his personal belongings in the rented car that was used in the robbery. And then Bobby's wife later came around to bug him for information/money.
While Hank did make a lot of mistakes, they were pretty human mistakes. Most people would've made those mistakes because most people are not professional criminals. I think that Hank has the signs of having been babied a little as the child. He was rather carefree, and not considerate of the situation he was in, such as sleeping with his brother's wife, etc.
Later on, Hank really got scared when Andy started killing the people at the drug dealer's apartment. He told Andy that the drug dealer wouldn't have called the police anyway because he was a drug dealer. Because Hank was not on a rampage like Andy was, he still had the capacity to think like a normal human, whereas Andy had already stopped caring. At Chris' home, after Dex and Andy were shot, Hank left Chris some money and then fled.
Despite Hank having had a hand in the robbery, I don't think that Charles would've hated him as much as Andy. For whatever reason, Charles always seemed to have a vendetta against Andy, and would've put more blame on Andy, even if he wasn't the ringleader of the operation (which in this case, Andy was).
Gina Hanson
Gina was Andy's wife, but was also having an affaire with Hank. When Gina left Andy, she told him that Hank told her that she was still beautiful. As she left, she still needed a bit of money, which Andy gave her.
While Gina didn't have a big role in the story, I think her character showed us how Andy was becoming more detached from the world. Gina was Andy's wife, but she didn't have the first-hand experience of seeing how he was treated by his family growing up. So she didn't notice that he was in anguish whenever interacting with them. But she also didn't see how these interactions were eating away at him. Gina felt ignored, but she didn't seem to do much to help Andy get over his issues.
The drug dealer told Andy that he needed to get a wife or a shrink. Andy had a wife, but she wasn't helping his mental state at all.
Charles Hanson
Charles was Andy and Hank's father. From childhood, he'd always been harder on Andy for no reason. His reason was that he was the oldest, and had hoped that his oldest son would not turn out like him, but that didn't really seem to make sense.
After Nanette's death, Charles did his own investigation because the police weren't really doing much. He'd tracked down the shady jewellery dealer, where he was told that Andy had sought him out. Even though Charles and Andy were never on good terms, they were family. Knowing that Andy was behind Nanette's death negated that blood relation, and now Charles didn't see Andy as his own child. This is why he decided to kill Andy, his own son.
Bobby Lasorda
Bobby was the guy that Hank hired to help him with the robbery. Bobby was even less capable than Andy. He was very rash, rushing into the robbery with a gun, etc. In the end, he died after being show by Nanette.
Chris Lasorda
Chris was Bobby's widow. She'd only tracked down Hank because she was now a widow and needed money for her child.
When Andy was about to shoot Hank, Chris shot Andy. I'm not really sure why she did so. If Andy shot Hank, there would be two bodies in her apartment (Dex and Hank). If she shot Andy, she would still have two bodies in her apartment (Dex and Andy). Perhaps it was just revenge for the fact that Andy had shot Dex.
Dex
It's kind of funny to me that Michael Shannon used to be typecast as scumbag husband/boyfriend/brother characters because now he's totally different. Anyway, he did his usual schtick. He wasn't on screen for too long though.
Themes
Family relationships
I don't think the themes were too strong in this story, but a lot of it revolved around the relationships between Andy, Hank and Charles.
Charles seemed to dislike Andy for whatever reason, and the thing was he actually showed it. So Andy was aware that his own father didn't like him. Of course, this caused lifelong problems for Andy, to the point that their grudges against one another could lead in actual filicide.
Hank was treated normally by his family, so he probably turned a blind eye to the injustices his brother was receiving. This would probably especially be the case when they were children, as parents were supposed to be the utmost authorities at that age.
As adults, I think that Andy tolerated Hank and just saw him as clueless. As for Hank, I think he would just have assumed that Andy had "grown out of it," and was on good terms with their father then.
However, seeing as how Hank had messed up so bad, Andy began to hate his brother for everything he did. He directed his anger towards killing others, but in the end, he figured that maybe he should just direct his anger towards the source of resentment. He resented Hank for having had the life that he wanted, and for being able to just ignore all his problems and have them taken care of for him. Hank couldn't handle the robbery on his own, and now Andy was picking up the pieces for him.
Overall
I thought this was a pretty good movie. I think the biggest draws would be the storytelling and the acting.
Spoilers.
Story
The story is as follows. Andy and Hank were both in a bit of financial trouble. Andy wanted to run away to Brazil with his wife Gina, and Hank was always behind on his child support payments. Andy's proposal was to rob their parents' jewellery story.
Hank hired Bobby Lasorda to go into the store because he knew he wouldn't have the guts to rob his own parents. Bobby went in to rob the store, and ended up shooting Nanette (Andy and Hank's mother). Bobby died as well.
Afterwards, the audience finds out more about the strained relationship between Andy and his family. He'd been treated poorly by his father, and didn't really care if he'd been killed during the robbery. However, on that day, Charles had his driving test and so Nanette was opening th store instead. During the funeral, Andy and Charles acknowledged that they never had a good relationship, but Charles did nothing to atone for how he treated his son.
Hank had been clumsy in covering up his actions. He'd left his CD in the car he'd rented, Bobby's girlfriend was a witness that could pin Bobby's death as being related to Hank. Andy also found out that Hank had been sleeping with his wife.
Near the end of the movie, Andy basically went on a nihilistic streak. Gina had left him. He then went to his drug dealer to steal money and kill people he was at it. He then went with Hank to meet Chris and Dex to pay them off. However, his anger was bubbling to a boiling point and he was going to shoot Hank for all the trouble he'd caused him in his life. Instead, Chris shot Andy. It's assumed that Hank ran away.
Andy was transported to the hospital, where he apologized to Charles, saying that Nanette's death was an accident. Charles appeared to forgive Andy, but suffocated him to death, either implying that he didn't really forgive Andy, or that he'd just despised Andy too much throughout his lifetime to want to put up with him anymore.
The story was presented in a non-linear manner up until Charles started tailing Andy and Hank. The way the story would unfold was that the movie would go to a particular place in time before the robbery, and take us through events up to and including the robbery. For the events that were repeated (such as Hank driving away and calling Andy from a pay phone, or Andy and Hank's discussion about robbing their parents' store), new aspects of the conversation or event would be revealed each time. For that, I applaud the editors because they managed to repeat events over and over again without making it feel like I was watching the same thing. Each time I saw the conversation between Hank and Andy in Andy's office, I was watching another part of the conversation that was not covered before, and gave me more information about the situation.
Towards the end, Andy was flying off the rails emotionally. His life was falling apart around him, but we got to understand how Hank and Charles always got on his nerves a bit, and he only tolerated them (with the help of drugs). However, now that he was in full rage mode, he definitely wasn't thinking straight, and that was what led him to take extreme actions, such as killing whoever got in his way.
This story reminded me a bit of Korean and Japanese thrillers, in which there is always some aspect of the story that is a little over the top. In doing so, it helps bring a certain issue into the spotlight. In this case, it would be Andy's contempt for his family.
Production
Cinematography
I felt that the cinematography was a little grainy for a 2007 movie. It reminded me a bit of 21 grams, which was a little older than this movie, but also a bit grainy. It wasn't a huge issue though, seeing as how this was mostly a drama.
The grainy appearance also made the movie seem a little like a memory, like Andy's entire life was bad dream, which was probably how he saw it.
Acting
The cast for this movie was pretty stacked. I do admit that I had a bit of a tough time taking Philip Seymour Hoffman seriously as a suave smooth guy. He didn't have the appearance. But I have to give credit where credit's due. His acting was A+++ and he really made the character of Andy Hanson his own. He was able to define Andy Hanson with his internal thoughts and struggles rather than his outward appearance.
Music
I thought the background music was pretty good for transitioning the story from a thriller into a more serious emotional drama. It made me focus on the characters' personalities and why they did the things that they did.
Characters
Andy Hanson
At the beginning of the movie, Andy was barely holding himself together. He was estranged from his family, and only occasionally spoke to his brother. He only seemed to speak to Hank because of his business proposition. To me, I felt that Andy wanted to use Hank as a shield. I don't think Andy was actually afraid that he'd be recognized in the plaza; I think that he just wanted to make Hank do all the dirty work.
Andy was also knee deep in a drug habit, and was apparently negligent in his job. When his company was audited, the auditors had found that the company had been paying two employees that had been terminated. I don't know if this was true negligence, or if those two employees were actually puppet accounts for Andy to embezzle money from the company.
Andy felt that he was still in a loving relationship with Gina, unaware that she was actively having an affair with Hank. He was hoping to accumulate enough money, and then the two of them would flee to Brazil and leave all of their problems behind.
After Hank messed up the robbery, Andy had to pick up all of the loose pieces. Not only did they have to evade suspicion of being behind the robbery, but they were also mourning their mother. Nanette was probably the only one holding the family together, seeing as how Andy had a poor relationship with his other family members. Now that she was gone, Andy could no longer tolerate the others.
Charles gave a half-assed apology when apologizing for his poor parenting, and that was a huge blow to Andy. At that point, he admitted to Gina that he felt like he was never part of the little club. At that point, I think Andy stopped caring about anything. He didn't even care that Gina was leaving him because he'd expected that no one would ever love him.
I think he decided to help Hank just in case it would keep him safe. But when Chris and Dex seemed to be too much trouble, he figured maybe he should just kill them, and then kill Hank too.
Although Andy hated Charles, he was truly sorry for killing his mother, and he took the opportunity to apologize while in the hospital. However, he'd already gone too far in Charles' books, and was suffocated to death.
I sympathized with Andy because he never felt like he was part of the family. Charles said he was hard on Andy because he was his first, but that's also kind of a bullshit reason now that he was a grown adult. That being said, the idea of teaming up with his younger brother to rob their own parents also didn't seem like a good idea, especially since I think he should've known that his brother was as careless as he was. Overall, I think that Andy was a very interesting character. He was flawed, and made mistakes, but that's what made him easier to sympathize with.
Hank Hanson
Hank was Andy's younger brother, and not a very capable man. He had a poor relationship with his ex-wife, and his relationship with his daughter was souring because he couldn't pay child support, and also likely because the ex-wife was badmouthing him. They would often get into arguments with the daughter within hearing range.
Hank had to agree with Andy's proposal before he was told what it was. When he found out they'd be robbing his parents' store, he was reluctant, but he'd given his word, and Andy temporariliy blinded him with a stack of $2,000.
Unfortunately, Hank made a lot of mistakes. He'd hired outside help, which was already a issue. He'd left his personal belongings in the rented car that was used in the robbery. And then Bobby's wife later came around to bug him for information/money.
While Hank did make a lot of mistakes, they were pretty human mistakes. Most people would've made those mistakes because most people are not professional criminals. I think that Hank has the signs of having been babied a little as the child. He was rather carefree, and not considerate of the situation he was in, such as sleeping with his brother's wife, etc.
Later on, Hank really got scared when Andy started killing the people at the drug dealer's apartment. He told Andy that the drug dealer wouldn't have called the police anyway because he was a drug dealer. Because Hank was not on a rampage like Andy was, he still had the capacity to think like a normal human, whereas Andy had already stopped caring. At Chris' home, after Dex and Andy were shot, Hank left Chris some money and then fled.
Despite Hank having had a hand in the robbery, I don't think that Charles would've hated him as much as Andy. For whatever reason, Charles always seemed to have a vendetta against Andy, and would've put more blame on Andy, even if he wasn't the ringleader of the operation (which in this case, Andy was).
Gina Hanson
Gina was Andy's wife, but was also having an affaire with Hank. When Gina left Andy, she told him that Hank told her that she was still beautiful. As she left, she still needed a bit of money, which Andy gave her.
While Gina didn't have a big role in the story, I think her character showed us how Andy was becoming more detached from the world. Gina was Andy's wife, but she didn't have the first-hand experience of seeing how he was treated by his family growing up. So she didn't notice that he was in anguish whenever interacting with them. But she also didn't see how these interactions were eating away at him. Gina felt ignored, but she didn't seem to do much to help Andy get over his issues.
The drug dealer told Andy that he needed to get a wife or a shrink. Andy had a wife, but she wasn't helping his mental state at all.
Charles Hanson
Charles was Andy and Hank's father. From childhood, he'd always been harder on Andy for no reason. His reason was that he was the oldest, and had hoped that his oldest son would not turn out like him, but that didn't really seem to make sense.
After Nanette's death, Charles did his own investigation because the police weren't really doing much. He'd tracked down the shady jewellery dealer, where he was told that Andy had sought him out. Even though Charles and Andy were never on good terms, they were family. Knowing that Andy was behind Nanette's death negated that blood relation, and now Charles didn't see Andy as his own child. This is why he decided to kill Andy, his own son.
Bobby Lasorda
Bobby was the guy that Hank hired to help him with the robbery. Bobby was even less capable than Andy. He was very rash, rushing into the robbery with a gun, etc. In the end, he died after being show by Nanette.
Chris Lasorda
Chris was Bobby's widow. She'd only tracked down Hank because she was now a widow and needed money for her child.
When Andy was about to shoot Hank, Chris shot Andy. I'm not really sure why she did so. If Andy shot Hank, there would be two bodies in her apartment (Dex and Hank). If she shot Andy, she would still have two bodies in her apartment (Dex and Andy). Perhaps it was just revenge for the fact that Andy had shot Dex.
Dex
It's kind of funny to me that Michael Shannon used to be typecast as scumbag husband/boyfriend/brother characters because now he's totally different. Anyway, he did his usual schtick. He wasn't on screen for too long though.
Themes
Family relationships
I don't think the themes were too strong in this story, but a lot of it revolved around the relationships between Andy, Hank and Charles.
Charles seemed to dislike Andy for whatever reason, and the thing was he actually showed it. So Andy was aware that his own father didn't like him. Of course, this caused lifelong problems for Andy, to the point that their grudges against one another could lead in actual filicide.
Hank was treated normally by his family, so he probably turned a blind eye to the injustices his brother was receiving. This would probably especially be the case when they were children, as parents were supposed to be the utmost authorities at that age.
As adults, I think that Andy tolerated Hank and just saw him as clueless. As for Hank, I think he would just have assumed that Andy had "grown out of it," and was on good terms with their father then.
However, seeing as how Hank had messed up so bad, Andy began to hate his brother for everything he did. He directed his anger towards killing others, but in the end, he figured that maybe he should just direct his anger towards the source of resentment. He resented Hank for having had the life that he wanted, and for being able to just ignore all his problems and have them taken care of for him. Hank couldn't handle the robbery on his own, and now Andy was picking up the pieces for him.
Overall
I thought this was a pretty good movie. I think the biggest draws would be the storytelling and the acting.