movie review - Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
Tokyo, 2009.06.03
This is a tough story about two fuck-up brothers who decide to rob their parents' jewelry store. Things go wrong and their accomplice kills their mother. We see a lot of the family dynamic that led one brother to be a junkie with a failing marriage and a corroding soul, and the other to be a divorced barfly adrift. That family story is what drives this thing along, and I thought it felt quite genuine. The pacing is great, the acting is uniformly great, and there are some very memorable scenes along the way.
Recommended.