Generally lifetime Academy Achievement Awards are handed out to octogenarian film directors are a sort of condescending pat on the back, a “thanks for all the great work you did way back when,” and a dismissive, now please get off the stage you smelly old, musty closet.
But in the case of Sidney Lumet, almost three years after receiving his Lifetime Achievement Oscar, he’s releasing what some are calling the finest work of his career with “Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead” (a film we eagerly anticipated in our fall preview; astute Playlist readers will remember the erm… naked trailer).
Director of such classics as “12 Angry Men,” “Dogday Afternoon,” “Serpico” and “Network” (not to mention “The Wiz“), perhaps Lumet’s belated Oscar maybe reminded him he didn’t want to be remembered for things like the Vin Diesel movie “Find Me Guilty,“the heist-gone-wrong ‘Devil’ is garnering Lumet some of his best reviews ever (Metacritic gives him a 88% positive and rotten tomatoes is currently at a 79% rating).
The gist, is classic and simple: two overextending and losing streak brothers (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke) need money badly, so they hatch a desperate and ill-conceived plan to rob their parent’s jewelry store (the dad played by thespian Albert Finney) and well, it’s probably a testament to the film’s execution that it can still be compelling knowing how well that above premise is going to go. Oh and Hoffman’s trophy wife, the increasingly sexy Marisa Tomei is having an affair with Ethan Hawke. Let’s just say this story has nowhere to go but down for the characters, but the trailer looks fantastic (“full of powerhouse scenes and over-the-top situations in nondescript locales, it’s a pulverizing experience,” writes Village Voice scribe J. Hoberman)
As a recent New York Times profile on the director and film notes, Lumet has Mr. Lumet’s track record with actors is flawless:. He has guided 17 performers (including Al Pacino, Katharine Hepburn, Paul Newman, Faye Dunaway and Ingrid Bergman) to Oscars or nominations.
Don’t call it a comeback though, Lumet will get pissed. “I’m kind of surprised at that word. Like I’ve been away? In that ‘away’ period, there’s some pretty goddamned good work,” the director told Time Out New York.
And apparently Lumet plans and rehearses so intently with his actors, the film shoot itself can be a cakewalk. “The rehearsal for this film was far more intense than the shoot,” Ethan Hawke said in the Times piece. “Sidney knows how to create an environment where acting can thrive.”
He also evidently shoots with speed, economy and decisiveness. “I’d never seen anything like it,” Mr. Hawke said. “I sometimes felt like there was another crew on the other side of the city doing the same script, and we were racing them. I did two takes on some of the biggest scenes in the movie.”
“Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead” opens this Friday in New York and goes into wider markets the following week.
“Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead” trailer