Not all great films are about pleasant subjects or leave one with a "feel good" experience when leaving the theater. Sadly, great films are often seen only once by a moviegoer and do not always do well at the box office. I’ve seen the good romantic comedy Pretty Woman (with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts) several times, but the great Steven Spielberg film Schindler’s List, about the Holocaust, only once. If leaving the audience feeling comfortable were the only criterion for making a film, then all that you’d ever see would be love stories with happy endings, or adventures in which the good guys always vanquish the bad. However, good and great films can be admired for other reasons: for the way in which the plot is revealed, the style with which a story is told, the camerawork, and for great performances. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is one such film.

Written by first-time screenwriter Kelly Masterson and directed by Hollywood veteran Sidney Lumet, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead tells the story of two brothers, Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Hank (Ethan Hawke) Hanson, each with money troubles and each having difficulty hanging on to what he’s got. Andy is head of payroll at a real estate company, and despite his appearance of success, has a costly drug habit. Hank works as a superintendent or handyman for the same company but has recently divorced and is having difficulty making his support payments. Andy manipulates Hank into believing that their financial difficulties can be solved with a simple, "foolproof" robbery in which no one gets hurt. The target: their own parents’ jewelry store.

They plan the robbery for a morning when their parents won’t be working. Hank is to break in wearing a mask, subdue the old lady who works there, and steal the jewels. But Hank loses his nerve and hires his friend Bobby (Brian F. O’Byrne) to commit the burglary. Bobby botches the job and is killed in a gunfight with the old lady -- who, it turns out, is not the expected employee, but the Hanson boys’ mother, Nanette (Rosemary Harris), who is left in a coma. Their father, Charles (Albert Finney), is determined to find out who planned the robbery; the brothers, racked by guilt and still under financial duress, must survive the investigations by the police and their own father. Then things turn really bad.

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead has a gritty, almost 1970s style to it. The story is told in flashbacks and flash-forwards, and I was never quite sure of the year in which the main events were supposed to have taken place. We often see the same scene twice, the second time from another character’s point of view; the story then continues from this new vantage point. The technique is an effective way of keeping the viewer engaged, makes an otherwise straightforward story more of a puzzle, piques the audience’s interest, and provides many "Ah-ha!" moments as another piece of the puzzle falls into place. Many films these days are told in nonlinear fashion, but Lumet does it particularly well here.

I was astounded by the quality of the actors’ performances -- the cast must have known they were making something special. Philip Seymour Hoffman is brilliant as the older, manipulative Andy, and Ethan Hawke is superb as the younger Hank, proving that he, too, is no lightweight in the acting department. Albert Finney is completely convincing as their distraught father, and Oscar-winner Marisa Tomei gives a surprisingly raw performance as Andy’s unfaithful wife, Gina. There is not a false note anywhere.

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead may not leave you with a "warm and fuzzy" feeling. Instead, enjoy it for what it offers: great acting, and a dark, relentless story about two small-time losers trapped in a downward spiral. It is one of the best films of 2007, and not to be missed.

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