Yet Another Al Pacino "By The Numbers" Movie. All "Shtick" And CGI

Rating: 4/10 (6 January 2005)

Behold! Al Pacino, over-acting! Behold! Al Pacino engaging in loud, bombastic and long-winded speeches! Behold! Keanu Reeves looking so puzzled, for LONG stretches of the movie, when the obvious has been made clear to the viewer, early on! Behold! Al Pacino lipsyncing to Frank Sinatra's, "It Happened in Monterrey," while prancing about a very large room, filled with computer generated images of heavenly (and not so heavenly) statues, engaged in all manners of horseplay! Behold! A stupefyingly LOUD musical soundtrack, filled with heavenly (and not so heavenly) religious symbolism, and STILL Keanu Reeves doesn't "get it!" Behold! Uber-Babes, Charlize Theron and Connie Nielsen, disrobing to full-frontal nudity! Behold! More F-words than even "Goodfellas!" Oh, my God (pardon me, He's implied in this picture, but He must've missed His cue), I could go on and on with the "Beholds!" Look, THIS movie is 144 minutes of Al Pacino ranting, raving and over-acting. THIS movie is for the myriad of high school and college students, out there, that got by with "crib sheets." I mean, unlike Roman Polanski's FAR superior, "Rosemary's Baby," and Paul Wendkos, "The Mephisto Waltz," there is absolutely NO subtlety expressed in this film, WHATSOEVER! It just continues to beat you over the head, until you are so thankful when the end credits FINALLY roll. For the benefit of cretins who STILL don't "get it," think Beelzebub, Satan, Lucifer and "Old Scratch." NOW do you "get it?" Good, it only took Keanu Reeves 143 minutes to arrive at the same conclusion! If you want good Al Pacino (and not heavy-handed schlock), rent "The Godfather," "Dog Day Afternoon," "Scarface," "The Godfather Part II," "Carlito's Way," "Donnie Brasco,' "The Insider" or "Insomnia." In "The Devil's Advocate," he's just phoning it in. TOTAL prostitution. Just in it for the bucks, so he can afford to play Shakespeare, off-Broadway.