The Devil You Know (2022)

(On Cable TV, October 2022) No one should feel guilty turning off The Devil You Know after fifteen or twenty minutes—suffering from a particularly slow and uninvolving start, this thriller initially feels as if it was made for TV broadcast, assembled from low-end components and put together without any specific flair. The low-budget and humdrum execution persist throughout, but at least the plot picks up sometime after the first half-hour, and the ethical dilemma of the protagonist becomes clearer: Stick to a life of crime to get along with his family, or make a clean break with his brother and help the police right a terrible wrong? An older, heavier Omar Epps stars as the ex-con trying to figure out his loyalties, while Michael Ealy gets a good turn as a dogged investigator who knows something is up with the family. The only question is whether it “gets better” enough to justify a viewing or not—The Devil You Know remains a small-scale crime thriller that doesn’t quite master its material nor how to present it. There are sudden unjustified jolts of violence, and the ending suddenly turns melodramatic around the family table. (Perhaps the funniest thing of this otherwise grim film is how one new girlfriend is sent packing from the family meal right before the final moments of the film—a clear signal to viewers that things are going to get serious now.) It’s a good thing that the film improved as it went along, because otherwise it would have been a complete pan. As it is, The Devil You Know barely makes it above water.