Well acted and engrossingly unpredictable, but morally confused and racist.
I'll never forget seeing the New Black Cinema classic "Menace II Society" in a movie theater in 1993. When the young, violent, murdering main character in that film tries to go back home to his family, they won't let him in the door. A black guy in the theater approved, yelling at the screen "Get yo' ass outta here, you CRAZY Mother-F---er!!!" I would think that guy and the Menace 2 Society filmmakers would be disappointed to see middle class black people depicted as morally challenged as some of the characters in The Devil You Know. The acting was great and the film's unpredictability kept me very engaged throughout, but in the end, it seems to espouse that it's okay to lie to the authorities to protect a family member even after they murdered 2 and possibly 4 people in cold blood. The black homicide detective (who's quitting his job because he can't stand to see another black man murdered or guilty of murder) can't even get the family to charge this murderer with an attempted assault on his own brother. Only a racist would think that black people don't have the moral integrity to report family members when they commit murder or that a black cop would not be more passionate about punishing evildoers and protecting the innocent than he is about their color.
I'll never forget seeing the New Black Cinema classic "Menace II Society" in a movie theater in 1993. When the young, violent, murdering main character in that film tries to go back home to his family, they won't let him in the door. A black guy in the theater approved, yelling at the screen "Get yo' ass outta here, you CRAZY Mother-F---er!!!" I would think that guy and the Menace 2 Society filmmakers would be disappointed to see middle class black people depicted as morally challenged as some of the characters in The Devil You Know. The acting was great and the film's unpredictability kept me very engaged throughout, but in the end, it seems to espouse that it's okay to lie to the authorities to protect a family member even after they murdered 2 and possibly 4 people in cold blood. The black homicide detective (who's quitting his job because he can't stand to see another black man murdered or guilty of murder) can't even get the family to charge this murderer with an attempted assault on his own brother. Only a racist would think that black people don't have the moral integrity to report family members when they commit murder or that a black cop would not be more passionate about punishing evildoers and protecting the innocent than he is about their color.