For Whom was this Movie Made?

Rating: Null/10 (3 April 2001)

Coming near the end of the 1990s, "The Devil's Advocate" might well have been a parable about that decade's unmitigated greed and selfishness. However, it seems unlikely that anyone in Hollywood thinks greed and selfishness are negative things, especially the latter. In a day when even mainline Christians and Jews downplay the devil or even subscribe to the theory that "he" is a convenient allegory of evil (some, unfamiliar with the Talmud, even maintain that this figure isn't even a part of orthodox Judaism).
That a serious movie was made about the evil one was made at all is an achievement. Although few movies, fortunately, fall for the gnostic gnonsense that the devil is an anti-God, the archetypical figure of evil is more often played for laughs ("Bedazzled", "Poor Devil") or as a misunderstood fellow who's not so bad but fell in with a bad crowd.
It's hardly a spoiler to mention that Al Pacino plays the devil in this film. After all, though the film begins slowly and gradually works to that revelation, the title and all the advertisements even at the time of the film's release hardly kept it a secret.
Pacino makes a good devil. Over the top, yes, but he's playing a figure who, once an angel, rebelled against God, fosters the evil within humans, and who, knowing he's ultimately defeated, wishes to destroy as many humans as he can, either bodily or spiritually. "The twentieth century was entirely mine," he says, and, mulling over twelve million killed in Nazi Germany (including six million of God's chosen people); ten times that killed in the Soviet Union; God only knows how many under Mao or the Khmer Rouge . . . and not just the deaths, but incredible selfishness, greed, vanity, pride . . . one wonders about the truth of that.
However, with so few people in the know about who the devil really is, out of touch with the theology, relying on imbecile notions of a figure in horns and a pointy tail, or vague ideas of a lingering Manichaean dualism, they can't understand that the devil is a liar; and with no unarbitrary ideas of right and wrong, and little sense of an actual metaphysical world beyond their senses, a modern audience may wonder why a little success should be considered evil.
And why a lawyer? In the 1990s lawyers, already disliked intensely, made themselves even more disliked. James Stewart in "Anatomy of a Murder", Gregory Peck in "To Kill a Mockingbird", Raymond Burr's Perry Mason -- people with callings, trying to uncover the truth and fight evil even at the cost of their careers -- are quaint figures of the past. The country is divided over whether O.J. is guilty or innocent, but rather closer in disdain for his "dream team"; a slick lawyer president slips out of a perjury rap everyone knows he committed by questioning the definition of "is"; tobacco companies send out lawyers in battalions to keep America safe for emphysema. The old joke tells how the devil appeared to a lawyer, promising him success in court, a great political career, and even the presidency, if only he will give the devil his soul; the lawyer thinks a moment and says, "What's the catch?" Perhaps a diabolical take on "The Fountainhead", making the devil's prey an architect deferring to evil through pride . . . But Keanu is a lawyer, and we're stuck with it, and we're supposed to have some sympathy for him. Talk about suspension of disbelief!
A serious movie about a subject materialistic people can't take seriously seems to be a work in vain. And people who believe in the devil, even those who are less theologically sound no the subject, probably won't enjoy this movie.
The writers seems uncertain about the Pacino character. Though he gives an interesting speech about God, and though the one thing people do know about the devil is that he's a liar, he's never confronted in any way about his lack of truthfulness (in fact, most books and movies about the devil show him as being truthful in a lawyerish way, giving what people want but always finding legitimate loopholes to make their lives miserable). And they didn't spend enough time on the idea of a parable. Perhaps they were in a hurry, or confused parable with allegory, which -- to some extent correctly -- has fallen out of favor these days and looked on askance.
Of course, the production values are nice. Only the best for Satan. And there are nice touches. John Milton's (Pacino) offer to Lomax (Reeves) is made on a Manhattan rooftop, similar to the temptation of Christ -- only Lomax accepts. But a lot of the effects and some of the horror is pointless, done seemingly for the sake of slipping it in. The non-horror parts are the best. Judith Ivey's religious mother, whose dialogue starts out sounding wacky but make's more and more sense, is the best. Pacino brings out the heavy artillery. Keanu is not particularly good, but he isn't expected to do much other than look cold, and react to Pacino. That he doesn't sound "southern" at all is no problem -- by the 1990s the south is so homogenized accents are almost extinct; and besides, they should only be done by the British, like Kenneth Branagh, whose accent in "The Gingerbread Man" is the best southern accent on film (some British accents are close kin to the old southern accent).
All in all, "The Devil's Advocate" is a noble failure, probably worthy of being seen once by open-minded viewers, and having its watered-down points and limp attempts at meaning discussed at least for a few minutes at Starbuck's afterward, and perhaps some consideration to what the unseen John Miltons are encouraging in our own lives that may be hurting others. But a better movie could have, and should have, been made (has anyone ever thought of having priests and rabbis in to give a considered view of the evil one?)