Four adult bothers are at the center of “The Devil You Know,” an efficient and well-acted family drama with the overlay of a modern morality tale: Marcus (Omar Epps), Anthony (Curtiss Cook), Drew (William Catlett) and Terry Cowans (Vaughn W. Hebron). But the story, written and directed by Charles Murray — an executive producer and writer of Netflix’s “Luke Cage,” the gritty urban superhero series — focuses on the fraught dynamic between two of them: Marcus, a recovering alcoholic and felon who is getting back on his feet with a new job, and Drew, who has just lost his job and appears to be implicated in the brutal home invasion, robbery, double murder and beating that open the film. (Michael Ealy plays the dogged detective investigating the case, but this is no police procedural.) Show It’s as if Marcus and Drew have traded places, as Drew observes. And Marcus is torn between turning police informant — sharing what he knows of Drew’s potential involvement with a police tip line — and shielding his younger brother. To snitch or not to snitch, in other words, is the question. And to what end? Are Marcus’s instincts punitive, protective or something else? As Drew notes, sarcastically, Marcus seems to have grown a conscience since finding sobriety. No, Marcus tells him: It’s prison that gave him a conscience; being sober means he has to live with that conscience. The screenplay is thoughtful and nuanced, and Epps’s performance anchors the narrative with a solid, unfussy portrayal of ethical indecision, even if the third act detours into more melodramatic territory. One of the film’s villains, played by Theo Rossi of “Luke Cage,” brings the same cartoonish energy he brought to that show, but it’s not quite enough to derail “Devil.” There’s an open-ended ambiguity to the film’s resolution that doesn’t fully satisfy, but maybe that’s life: There are no happy endings or pat lessons sometimes, this story seems to say. And some people have to learn that the hard way. R. At area theaters. Contains coarse language throughout, some violence and sexual references. 116 minutes. This movie wants to be two films at once, and it doesn't quite seem to know how to meld its more tender moments into its crime drama storyline. Because of this, The Devil You Know is confusing, especially when you get to the end. While it's supposed to be about a man's moral conflict about turning his brother in, the film ultimately seems more interested in portraying a Black family on-screen. Indeed, the moments with just the family are the film's best. There's realism between the actors, with the movie expertly showcasing a Black family that's focused on togetherness, love, and selflessness. It might have worked better if The Devil You Know had been a more standard family drama, like Soul Food, since that's where writer-director Charles Murray shines the most. It's once the film starts trying to tell a morality story loosely pulling from the Biblical tale of Cain and Abel that things get fuzzy and don't feel fully worked out. It's hard to reconcile the movie's beautiful family moments with the idea that some of the family members would want to turn a blind eye to injustice. Pair that with Ealy not having much to do in the film, and The Devil You Know is a good premise helmed by a filmmaker who seems only half-invested.
What is the movie The Devil You Know based on?EXCLUSIVE: Production is underway on a feature documentary from HBO Documentary Films and This Machine inspired by New York Times columnist Charles Blow's book The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto.
Is the movie The Devil You Know a good movie?best watched knowing that the movie is a genuinely conceived urban drama and not a slick action crime film. April 9, 2022 | Rating: 6/10 | Full Review… An uneasy combination of family friction and crime drama further hobbled by problems of logic and pacing,..has high ambitions, but it fails to achieve them.
Where can I watch The Devil You Know movie 2022?The Devil You Know, a thriller movie starring Omar Epps, Michael Ealy, and William Catlett is available to stream now. Watch it on The Roku Channel, STARZ, Spectrum TV, ROW8, Prime Video, Vudu, Redbox. or Apple TV on your Roku device.
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