Well..it opens shockingly enough with a pretty explicit sex scene feature Phillip Seymour Hoffman -

Once your eyes stop burning, you're treated to a well above average, grim crime drama. The plot doesn't really surprise much - two brothers: one a quiet, simmering evil, the other is your classic down-on-his-luck schmuck; decide to rob their parent's jewelry store in order to get out of their financial holes -once the gears are set into motion it's not shocking where it all leads. The screenplay strongly reminded me of Scott Smith's brilliant novel ( and the movie was also damn strong) A Simple Plan - in that show us how quickly things can go wrong and how far a person can go to try to extricate themselves from the quicksand.

The performances are great, Hoffman, good as always, Ethan Hawke is good as the sad sack brother, Albert Finney and Marisa Tomei also are solid.

Sidney Lumet directs with a assured hand and a nice feeling of impending doom and drenching sadness, for Lumet it's a great return to form, he's crafted a tight, tense film from Kelly Masterson's script -  it also ehcoes the Coens at times, but this is good filmmaking - it;s easy to see why it ended up on so many top ten Best of 2007 lists, and frustrating to see that it did very little business. Something of this caliber should have had a major studio behind it.

Quoted from mikep Something of this caliber should have had a major studio behind it.

And there lies the irony! If a major studio had produced this script it certainly would not have been anything like this caliber. The script would have been given to a 'Hollywood re-writer" to tinker with and dumb down, the lovely breasts on display (sorry ladies!) would have been written out and there would have been a much happier ending with someone learning a great lesson etc.. etc..

As it is this is a great movie, A major studio would have ruined it.

I saw this film in the cinema without knowing what it was about or who was in it. As soon as I read the cast, I knew the film wouldn't be bad.

The plot summary is basically what has been said above, but in no way would I add it to my 2007 best film list. The movie was pretty average. Opening sex scene was sufficent enough to keep me hooked, but don't be fooled by the heist synopsis. It is strictly a in the genre of drama.

Robert

Quoted from Murphy And there lies the irony! If a major studio had produced this script it certainly would not have been anything like this caliber. The script would have been given to a 'Hollywood re-writer" to tinker with and dumb down, the lovely breasts on display (sorry ladies!) would have been written out and there would have been a much happier ending with someone learning a great lesson etc.. etc.. As it is this is a great movie, A major studio would have ruined it.

True - had it been from a major studio, at one point we'd hear this in the trailer :

"Jim Carey and Adam Sandler in their most daring dramatic roles yet!"

At which point, I'd just have to stage a Jihad.