Mark Reviews Movies: THE DEVIL YOU KNOW

The Devil You Know, Lionsgate

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 31, 2022

The central question of The Devil You Know basically comes down to a choice: to snitch or not to snitch. Under the general circumstances of this story, the choice doesn't seem like much of one, but the specifics are always the things that get in the way.

A similar sentiment could be tossed at director Charles Murray's screenplay, which establishes a pretty clear dilemma for its conflicted protagonist but becomes sidetracked by subplots, characters, and other details and elements that have little or nothing to do with that dramatic dilemma. The split and distracted focus here doesn't help Murray make anything beyond a muddled and unclear point.

The story opens with a home invasion, as three men break into a house that they expected to be empty. Instead, a family of three is there, and in the aftermath, a mother and father have been murdered, while their teenage son is clinging to life in a coma.

From there, we meet Marcus (Omar Epps), a recovering alcoholic and drug addict who spent some time in prison, but he is putting his life together. He's about to start a job as a city bus driver, gets support from his sizeable family, and, at the family's regular Sunday dinner, meets Eva (Erica Tazel), a nurse. This was meant to be a setup, but neither of them knew it. Anyway, the family bonds and jokes and has a little bit of tension about assorted things. Eva tells Marcus to call her for an official date later, and he drives his brother Drew (William Catlett), who had too much to drink, home. There, Marcus finds a collection of pricey baseball cards, which Drew insists he's holding for a couple of friend who got them through innocent means.

Three months later, Marcus' job is going well. He and Eva have been dating, and after Eva accidentally drops that she loves him, Marcus gives her a key to his house. Murray's depiction of this romance, which becomes one of a few things that falls by the wayside as the screenplay becomes overloaded with characters and complications, is a bit too calculated in its sweetness, which is only highlighted by how underdeveloped it and Eva are.

Indeed, the romance, along with several other subplots here, is pretty inconsequential to the main plot, except to add some complications and obstacles along the sidelines of the story. The big point is that Marcus eventually sees that baseball card collection on the TV news. The teenager whose parents were murdered in the home invasion has come out the coma, and the cards belonged to the boy's father. That means Drew's friends might have been responsible for the crimes, and after some internal debate and in order to help his brother, Marcus calls in an anonymous tip to the police.

From there, things spiral out of control for Marcus, Drew, and the entire family, as the suspects (played by Theo Rossi and B.J. Britt) implicate Drew in the murders. He's arrested by the detective on the case, who is played by Michael Ealy and, in his weariness with the job, gives screenplay yet another character and set of ideas to overlook. The arrest leads to a health crisis for the family patriarch (played by Glynn Turman), and while the family tries to figure out who could have done the snitching that led to Drew's arrest, Marcus deals with calling in the tip and, later, the possibility that his brother was actually involved in the crime by spiraling himself.

It's a lot, although not at all in the way Murray clearly envisions this story to be—as a complicated drama about guilt and the ties that bind, as well as a mystery about what Drew may or may not have done. This is a lot in that it's filled with so much extraneous conflict and so many convoluted obstacles that weigh down a fairly intriguing question of morality, responsibility, and loyalty. It's pure melodrama, distracting from and/or eliminating the potential of these characters, this main conflict, and whatever message or sense ambiguity Murray wants us to take from this tale.

The idea for something complex in terms of relationships and morality, as well as how those two things define and clash with each other, is here. The Devil You Know, though, is simply too messy in all the wrong ways for that complexity to be examined or even come through in this story.

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