Thanks to satellite television, our family receives more than 400 channels, not including all the pay-per-view channels. It’s a cliche, but with all these channels, I still can’t find anything to watch. Prime time is a little easier since there are a few shows in that time slot that I watch consistently. But after Grey’s Anatomy, what was I going to watch? I took the remote with fervor and started channel surfing — I’m incensed when someone channel surfs and cannot find one channel to settle on, but when I’ve got control of the remote (which I lovingly refer to as the conch, as in Lord of the Flies) it’s okay. Double standards abound in my life.

Anyway, as I was surfing I found monumental epics such as One Missed Call, I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, and The Sasquatch Gang – films I would normally roll my eyes at, but actually considered on this night of particularly bad television. It was an eerie quandary, as I knew if I watched these films, I would have to bury my head in the sand. In shame.

Then I came across the opening title of Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead… and I settled in. Netflix delivered the movie to us a few months ago and I sent it back without watching it, by accident.

Kelly Masterson’s script is creepily honest and creates despondent and troubled characters whose futures are bleak. The film’s pace is consistent and is greatly assisted by Academy Award winning director Sidney Lumet’s use of various characters’ vantage points and use of time in flashbacks. Lumet allows the audience to breathe in these characters and find correlations between their lives and our own. Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead is a depressing, dreary look at human nature. Families, such as the Hansons, are incredibly dysfunctional, and the more they try to get ahead in life the more they experience turmoil.

Grade: A

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Rated R for violence, nudity, language

Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei, Albert Finney and Rosemary Harris

Directed by Sidney Lumet

Screenplay by Kelly Masterson

Photo Sources: Mybroadwayvideo.info, Allmoviephoto.com