Before the Devil needs more details

In theaters Friday: Iron Man, Made of Honor
New on DVD: 27 Dresses, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Golden Compass

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead was one of those films I missed seeing in the theater last fall (mainly because it only showed for two weeks in Baton Rouge), so I was really anticipating it on DVD. The trailer was tense and the cast with Albert Finney, Ethan Hawke, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Marisa Tomei looked great. I liked the morality tale premise of two down-on-their-luck, corruptible brothers — one owes tons of child support, the other is drug addict — who decide to burglarize their parent’s jewelry store for some quick cash. Of course nothing goes according to plan, and every family member plummets into a black hole of suffering for the next 90 minutes. The problem is that the audience suffers, too. The film did deliver a couple of knockout scenes between Hawke and Hoffman, but overall left me cold and uninterested.

Master director Sidney Lumet comes out unscathed. His staging of scenes, camerawork and the performances he pulled out of the cast are commendable. The problem lies instead with the story. The way these characters are written, not one of them is terribly likable. And when an audience has no one to root for, they have no one — when push comes to shove — to care about. Of course, without characters you are emotionally invested in, it doesn’t matter how much suspense or fireworks the filmmaker throws on the screen, none of it will stick. I went in with high expectations, but this has to be one of the bigger disappointments of the year so far.

I’ll be checking out The Savages and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly this week. I hope I like them better.

Well, it’s official now, Guillermo del Toro — or GTD I call him when we hang out — will direct Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit, and a sequel that will bridge the film with the trilogy. The Hobbit will debut in 2010. I’m pretty psyched about this news. I’m a huge fan of Pan’s Labyrinth, and think GTD has just the right touch to pull off the film that is more child-like and whimsical than the previous trilogy.

I don’t often take time out just to bash an upcoming film, but I have to say, what is the deal with Iron Man? Why are so many people excited about this movie? I’ll be honest, I enjoyed the first minute of the first trailer. You know the one where Robert Downey Jr. is a sarcastic billionaire industrialist and U.S. arms manufacturer. It was great and reminded me of Thank You for Smoking. But as soon as he puts the stupid suit on, it’s all over. By the time the sludgy riffs from Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” were playing, I was laughing my head off it was so ridiculous. I like Downey, and I have no ill will toward the Iron Man franchise, I just have to go on record saying The Dark Knight is the only superhero movie I’ll be reviewing this summer.