Pure Greatness!

Rating: 10/10 (19 March 2006)

I guess I am one of the very few people who find the movie much superior than most thrillers considered as cinematic masterpieces. Yes, I find The Devil's Advocate better than let's say LA Confidential.
As a court room thrillers fan, I cannot hate or not like that movie. The story follows a young lawyer Kevin Lomax played by Keanu Reeves who turns out to be a great lawyer and gets sent to New York for his first real big case. He is about to get married and so Kevin could be the happiest man on earth. The man he gets sent to is John Milton played by Al Pacino. A man with style who appreciates Kevin's achievements by far and he admire his enthusiasm and of course, he sees a lighter future in Kevin. After all, a great lawyer could put anyone out of great situation. Milton is in fact his new boss. New Yor, beautiful wife, fame, prestige, success. Of course nothing could be perfect for one human being. Not in life, nor in movies. Strange things starts to happen with our main character, the people he knows become different. His life is about to become a nightmare and it turns out that Milton is some kind of a living on earth Lucifer.
One of the greatest "lawyer" kind of movies, plots ever. The movie is much more of a deep drama with dark and unexpected moments, then a thriller with an optimistic, smiling and happy lawyer who saves the day for wrongfully accused innocent looking guy. The movie hides a great cliché among its deeper meanings. Fame's fatality. Kevin's character is a provincial guy with innocent understanding for his life, with no imagination or great brain. In fact, he is nothing special, but he is a lawyer who wins cases and people love him. He is lucky, God has "touched" him and everything works fine until he commits a sin by celebrating his fame, becoming a new person with higher standards, different attitude to his friends and wife. He becomes a whole new person that God does not love anymore. Well, I think it might be kind of a metaphor. He has been in heave all his life, you know what I mean and when he commits the sin, he fells in hell without realizing it and John Milton is the devil. And because the most part of the movie takes place after he becomes the new person, that kinda symbolizes who the devil is playing with him and how he turns his life into a nightmare. That's the devil's job after all. For example the scene with the baby playing with insides. These are basically the things you realize if you look into the movie deeper. It's great, cause it's full of clichés about degradation and wrong life if I could put it in that way, covered with metaphors and symbolisms and the movie is fresh and original as a final result and in my case, I loved it.
As for the acting. Bad actor and one of the greatest actors alive. Eccentric and fun combination that could challenge people watch the movie only for that particular reason. Well, Reeves gives all he got and I could easily say it's his best performance by far. He plays the same characters, but this time, his character is given life, his character is a normal human, his character is based on a book character. I could list many reasons why an actor I hate, a bad actor gives a good performance in a great movie. And as for Pacino - I was surprised he had taken the role so seriously. The final duologue scene is probably the best in the movie, mostly cause of his acting, his ability to keep the balance between overacting where he has to and be himself where he wants to, improvising. Exactly what a devil in human form, would be.
10 out of 10 - almost no flaws.