Movie Review: Before The Devil Knows You're Dead

In this age of torture porn and Ron Schneider movies, it's hard to shock the average film goer. However, the opening scene of Before The Devil Knows You're Dead may test even the hardiest cinema buff – a completely naked Philip Seymour Hoffman engaged in a unpleasantly sweaty bedroom romp.

This is Hoffman's second movie of the week, and it's a bleak crime melodrama in which he and brother Ethan Hawke plot a robbery on their parents' jewellery store. Needless to say there are disastrous consequences.

This is the latest film from the great Sidney Lumet, who over 50 years of directing has given us such classics as Network, Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon. It's the sort of film in which things start bad and just get worse – by the end embezzlement and heroin addiction are the least of our bungling brothers' worries.

Lumet takes a non-chronological approach to the material, staging the robbery right from the start and then moving forward and back as Hoffman and Hawke attempt to cover their tracks.

There are strong performances from Hawke, a frequently naked Marisa Tomei and Albert Finney, whose face manages to set a new standard in on-screen misery.

But as with this week's Charlie Wilson's War, it's Hoffman who dominates the movie. He's a bitter, sleazy, desperate creep and yet gives his character a massive amount of depth and humanity – in a career filled with superb performances, this is one of the very best.

It's a dark and brooding film, the only real misstep being Lumet's decision to cram in no fewer than four murders in the last ten minutes. Nevertheless, it's refreshing to see Hollywood serving up such a serious-minded, adult thriller for a change. Happy endings? Who needs 'em?