WILD APPLAUSEBefore the Devil Knows You're Dead: Crime melodrama. Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney and Marisa Tomei. Directed by Sidney Lumet. (R. 113 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)

Sidney Lumet turned 83 in June, but "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead feels like the work of a young man. There's nothing valedictory or wise or sentimental or reflective about his new movie. Its virtues are velocity, energy, innovative storytelling - and something that seems even more the province of young directors: a certain heartlessness and ironic distance in the tone.

More than anything, the tone of "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" provides the pleasure and distinguishes it from other thrillers. Characters are observed from a clinical remove - the kind of detachment usually associated with a farce, not a drama. Lumet doesn't invite us to care about these people but to see them as curiosities, almost as anthropological specimens. The result of all this distance is that the movie's tension and drama, however real, come with just a hint - an arresting accent - of the ridiculous.

The pivotal event comes at the beginning of the movie. A mom-and-pop jewelry store in a Westchester shopping mall is robbed, and it's a disaster of blood and shattered glass. The old lady minding the store is shot, and the thief is shot twice and sent flying through the storefront window. From there, the movie flashes back in time and starts filling in details.

Part of the peculiar amusement of the picture comes from knowing how that robbery turns out. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a smooth-talking know-it-all who persuades his struggling younger brother (Ethan Hawke) into participating in what's supposed to be a foolproof, victimless caper. They'll rob their parents' jewelry store. No one will get hurt, and the insurance will reimburse Mom and Dad. Watching Hoffman, with his self-satisfied smirk, browbeat a cowering, diffident Hawke becomes almost funny when you know that everything he's saying is wrong.

Screenwriter Kelly Masterson structures the story with a series of flashbacks, which follow individual characters in the days leading up to the robbery. Each segment advances the action a little past the crime, and then, once the audience has caught up with the colorful backstory, he discards the flashbacks and pushes the narrative forward.

Just reading a synopsis of the story would be entertaining, but Masterson does more than simply plot a clever crime film. He writes strong scenes. The tortured dynamic, for example, between Albert Finney as the patriarch and Hoffman as his eldest son results in some searing moments, particularly the scene in which the son nearly has an emotional breakdown while driving a car. Hoffman is usually a cool customer onscreen, but this role takes him to new places.

Leave it to Lumet to cast the under-used, under-appreciated and always good Marisa Tomei as the sexpot sleeping with both brothers. It's a daring part - she spends a lot of time naked, in a role with uncharacteristically harsh edges - but she and Lumet turn it into the kind of showcase that can make casting directors expand their notion of a "Marisa Tomei role." And I like what Lumet gets out of Hawke. He plays a character who spends most of the movie terrified. Instead of the usual shaky hands and stammering that every actor does to indicate fear, he exhibits a symptom of terror found in real life, not movies: His mouth goes stiff, and he has trouble enunciating words. That's the touch that makes his performance.

Lumet's sophisticated understanding of the material extends to the soundtrack, which doesn't try to enlist a subjective response but is used to create distance. Composer Carter Burwell doesn't underscore most scenes. The music is used mainly in the transitions between scenes, as a sardonic or rueful commentary on what has gone before. Everything supports an overall vision. Everything is of a piece.

"Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" - the title is based on an old Irish toast - does not reside in the far reaches of high art. It's just a caper melodrama. Still, it's an invigorating, refreshing and unusual thing to see one done so expertly.

-- Advisory: Nudity, graphic violence, graphic simulated sex, unseemly language.