A very fine thriller

Rating: 9/10 (10 November 2003)

'The Devil's Advocate' is one of my favorite thrillers of the nineties. It is not as good as 'The Silence of the Lambs' or 'Seven' but it gives the same pleasure to watch it. What Anthony Hopkins and Kevin Spacey did to those two movies is what Al Pacino does to this. They make great villains and although they do horrible things you admire them in a way. They are the best thing in movies like this.
(Minor spoilers.) Al Pacino is the Devil himself here and when someone tells him that the only thing worse than not having a father was having hers, he simply replies: "I can relate. I can, believe me." You just have to chuckle when you hear this.
Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves) is a hotshot lawyer in Florida who never lost a case. He is approached by a firm from New York to come work for them. John Milton (Al Pacino) is the head of this firm. Kevin's wife Mary Ann (Charlize Theron) is thrilled with the thought of living in New York at first, but slowly things change. She has creepy visions and she knows things are not as they seem. Kevin's mother, a strong religious person, also feels that things are not good. Around here we learn who Milton really is.
The movie has some nice surprises, some of them you might expect, but others are really surprising. What happens I will not reveal, but Pacino's speech near the end, which starts with the words "let me tell you about God" is great, funny and more than entertaining. The Devil is the perfect role for Pacino, with his charismatic appearance and his false laugh. Reeves is good enough but is almost nothing in comparison with Pacino, the gorgeous Theron does a great job and the very beautiful Connie Nielsen in a role that becomes more important near the movie's end is fine as well.
To see this for Pacino is enough, but there is great other stuff here. Don't miss it.