Grim and gripping, "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" gives a different spin to crime and punishment. At 83, Sidney Lumet is back in the director's chair and he still has the chops.

In the 1970s, he was king of the city (New York) with such movies as "Dog Day Afternoon," "Serpico" and "Network."

This time, he's back to his old stomping grounds but in the 'burbs and spare interiors instead of the streets.

At the center of the story is the Hanson brothers. Andy, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, is a sly manipulator financially in over his head. He's been cooking the books at his real estate firm and taking his happy hour at a posh shooting gallery owned by his fey heroin dealer.

Hank, played by Ethan Hawke, is equally strapped for money. He's behind in his child-support payments, and his bitter ex-wife likes to watch him squirm.

Marisa Tomei plays Andy's wife. She's a good-to-go bedroom dynamo with a concept of brotherly love that doesn't jibe with holy Scripture. Tomei spends a lot of screen time mostly unlcothed, and more power to her.

Albert Finney is the other major character, the brothers' father who looms large in the forces that forged the character development of his two sons. The story picks up increasing dread as the characters careen out of control. Finney's visage appropriately takes on the look of the deeply carved masks in Greek tragedies as he struggles to deal with the consequences of the actions of his children.

The Hansons' downward spiral starts with a bad idea that neither brother has the sense to abort. They're going to rob a strip mall jewelry store to solve their money troubles. Andy, the slippery architect of the scheme, persuades Hank to do the job. Hank has always been a little short in the spine department so he enlists a felonious acquaintance. From the moment the henchman enters the store's door, everything goes south.

Lumet and screenwriter Kelly Masterson don't stick to a straight chronology as they chart this cautionary story of ordinary people cast adrift from a moral compass and common sense. The filmmakers skip from the actual stick-up to incidents before and after. The technique expertly captures a poisonous descent, snowballing bad karma caused by money lust and stupidity.

The performances are uniformly good, but Hoffman trumps his fellow actors. He's repellent but interludes with his father, brother and mother and scenes involving his failing marriage give him a vulnerable core. This intrusion of humanity doesn't make him less culpable but it makes him far more interesting than most movie bad guys.