Veteran director Sidney Lumet is once again on familiar territory with this New York-set thriller that takes its title from an old Irish toast - "May you be in heaven half an hour before The Devil knows you're dead". It's an effective blend of crime flick and family melodrama that features a pair of finely judged performances from its leads. Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Hank (Ethan Hawke) play the brothers afflicted by financial, relationship and substance abuse problems. Increasingly desperate, they come up with a scheme to rob the family jewellery store. But their criminal enterprise is a disaster that ends in violence and soon the net of retribution closes in, both in the form of the police and their dad (a wildly overacting Albert Finney). Hoffman is predictably excellent as a son full of fury at his father, which he hides beneath a smooth, diffident exterior; but equally impressive is Hawke as the younger sibling, a boy/man so terrified he seems to be permanently on the verge of tears. Like most melodrama, it's on the wrong side of subtle, but this is top quality stuff that maintains the director's sterling reputation.