Sidney Lumet has a knack in making what can sometimes be ordinary movies, into ones that make you glad you bothered seeing them.
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Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke star as two brothers, who for different reasons, are losers. Hoffman’s Andy Hanson is embezzling his employer to finance a drug habit, while Hawke’s younger brother Hank has never amounted to much and never will. Add to that Andy’s bored wife who is having an affair with Hank and you already know things aren’t going well in Hanson household.
In an effort to get them both out of a financial pickle Andy comes up with the idea of robbing their parents’ jewellery store at a local mall. Enough to say the whole thing goes pear-shaped and the ensuing drama unfolds with a couple of little twists here and there. There’s an underlying subplot as to why the brothers are dysfunctional, which almost seems a cop-out.
A negative is that there are no sympathetic people, which is a no-no in any movie, leaving the viewer wondering why they even care what happens to the various characters. That said all cast members go through their paces and although there are no stand out performances, there is enough there to keep the viewer’s interest until the end.
