Which I very much liked.
First, the plot is "kinda" similar (getting money from family, etc). But the music and the way I felt throughout the movie was great.
It's not a perfect movie like Fargo in my opinion, but clearly a good one. It's sad that the storytelling and the order screwed the movie for me... They should have told the story from start to finish.
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Both are stories where a "perfect plan" just gets gradually worse and worse until all is blown to hell ultimately, that much is true. However, as usual for the Coens, they can´t help but put a reasonable amount of jokey, post-modernist distance between the protagonists and the viewer as they´re clearly having a bit of a laugh at their stupid, bungling characters, thereby downplaying the tragic dimensions Lumet here never attempts to hide.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
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Yeah.
shareBoth are stories where a "perfect plan" just gets gradually worse and worse until all is blown to hell ultimately, that much is true.
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And in both cases, the crooks elect to put their own family members at risk to pull off the plan. Fargo: a man allows crooks to terrify and kidnap his wife. Devil: two sons agree to rob their parents' jewelry store.
A similar movie about a plan going wrong -- but without family victims -- was "A Simple Plan" by Sam Raimi. Who was a pal and colleague of the Coen brothers.
And of course, both Fargo and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead have the same musical composer -- Carter Burwell -- so they have the same musical mood.
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However, as usual for the Coens, they can´t help but put a reasonable amount of jokey, post-modernist distance between the protagonists and the viewer as they´re clearly having a bit of a laugh at their stupid, bungling characters, thereby downplaying the tragic dimensions Lumet here never attempts to hide.
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Well, the whole "family deaths" thing is more raw and painful in "Devil," but lurking beneath Fargo was the fact that beneath all that snow and the funny accents and comedy lines were extremely horrific outcomes: a mother terrorized, locked in a trunk, kidnapped and killed; her father killed; a boy left without his dead mother, his jailed father, his dead grandfather....the pain is there in Fargo too -- just hidden.