"They must want you pretty bad""It's time to step up and take what's yours".

Rating: 7/10 (19 February 2011)

This movie is about a talented lawyer that knows exactly what to do to win cases. But his ambitions get the better of him and things start to get weird. This film isn't as impressive as I was expecting it to be, but it's still a pretty darn good movie. With everything interwoven in a really good manner. I never really thought of Keanu Reeves as a phenomenal actor but he is alright in this movie and fit decently. He played the manipulative lawyer and intelligent lawyer really well. Although Keanu Reeves takes up most of the screen time, the real scene stealer is Al Pacino. In fact Al Pacino is what makes this movie engaging, sort of. Even if Al Pacino first refused this role because he wanted to get paid more and the cool actor Keanu took some money out from his own account in order to get Al Pacino into this film. Now lawyers are known to some as liar and this is the premise of the movie with lies and greed. And this all adds up to evil and the consequences of this and the message is basically about how there is aspects of the devil in all of us. Well mostly temptation for most people. But we all have choices, in fact life is about choices and we are accountable for our decisions. Now I found this movie to be a bit mediocre but as the film comes close to the end, it really does pick up. Although that ain't saying much since majority of this is mediocre, but the as the film comes close to the end it really started to become intriguing. Now I can see why some people would think the final speech Al Pacino's character gives in the movie to be magnificent, but it's old and it's a philosophy that has been done before. But on the other hand there is charisma the way Al Pacino's character delivers it, and many bad men in the past had charisma. And the main reason I found why some people would root for Al Pacino's character is the aspect of his speech when he claims "I'm﻿ a fan of man---I'm a humanist". Even if it's stupid for people to claim to have become a satanist because of the final speech scene. I will give credit the way it's delivered is done well. Again this film proves why Al Pacino is a extraordinary actor. Keanu is alright but Nic Cage would have been a better choice.
7.3/10