A 2007 crime thriller directed by Sidney Lumet.
There are so many great movies out there. I was interested in this film because of Philip Seymour Hoffman in the leading role.
Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a debt-ridden broker, needs some quick cash. He ropes his younger brother, Hank (Ethan Hawke), into a scheme to commit the perfect crime: to rob their parents' (Albert Finney, Rosemary Harris) Westchester jewellery store, perched between Foot Locker and Claire’s in a neighbourhood strip mall where they both worked as kids. The scheme goes horribly awry, and the family patriarch Charles Hanson takes justice into his own hands, unaware that the criminals he is hunting are his own sons.
The film opens with Seymour Hoffman and Marisa Tomei being intimate, don’t let that put you off.
It’s a clever way to show how Andy’s life is falling apart.
He’s worked his way up in a company running the payroll department and has been embezzling money to keep his head above water. His brother Hank has his own problems. An ex wife on his ass for missed maintenance payments. And a family background and dynamic where he is used to being the baby of the family.
The film cleverly explores a family dynamic where the players are damaged, not through violence or poverty but through jealousy, sibling rivalry and parents unable to communicate.
In many ways the film is so powerfully shocking because it is so normal. It shows the darkest is sides of human nature and Seymour Hoffman plays the disturbed ruthless character, cold and manipulative to a tee.
It is crafted cleverly, pieced together in moments in time through the characters different perspectives which gives the audience an inside track on how things pan out in there own lives and shows how we never really see the complete picture in real life.
It is an education into human psychology packaged in a fast paced crime drama packaged inside one damaged family who really didn’t have anything to be really upset about. Just a complete mess of all their own making, a domino effect of catastrophe that stemmed from aspiration, money, greed and terrible compounded choices.
My grandmother used to tell me when you don’t know what to do, do nothing until you do. When you don’t know what to say, say nothing until you do. This film shows how rash decisions in the heat of a desperate moment. It’s the lesson for all of us, once the toothpaste is out of the tube, there’s no way of getting it back in.
And even a parent can do the unthinkable when pushed to the limit.
I am not sure I’d need to watch this film again. It’s not that type of watch over and over again.
It did make me think about Philip Seymour Hoffman though and what was going on in the mind of such a talented and gifted actor who could capture these human complexities so vividly in screen that perhaps led him to his own early death.
The saddest part of the film for me, maybe a little too convincing glimpse inside a troubled mind.
I would imagine watching his brilliant performance in hindsight knowing what was to happen a few years later in 2014 dying accidentally from an unintentional overdose, would make this difficult to revisit for his costars.
The title whilst difficult to remember or understand comes from the Irish saying May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you are dead is wishing someone a peaceful and quick passage straight to heaven so their soul is safe before any mischief or judgment can catch up to them.
It makes a good deal of sense after watching. Sometimes death is not cruel it releases and sets you free.