Could have been great

Rating: 7/10 (7 October 2002)

This is a frustrating movie, in my opinion. You can tell that it has potential of being a truly great movie; the basic theme, several plot twists, the casting and the costumes and sets all point in direction of a "classic".
But I think it falls short, and it does so because of a few flaws that needn't have been there. I've read praise of Al Pacino's performance in earlier comments, but I think it's one of the major problems. He's given completely free reins, and in fact must have been encouraged to go all out. And so he does, with obvious pleasure. The end result is overblown, overstated, crude, lacking in nuance. He laughs like the devil and smiles like the devil... over and over... adding nothing to the character after the initial impression. There is no growth in Milton's character, or in Pacino's handling of it.
This is the second problem - the Milton part is badly written. It contains long, literary and completely artificial monologues on the state of the world, that doesn't work at all on the screen. No person, not even the devil, talks like that. You lose interest, because the basic direction of the monologue is clear from the beginning, even though it goes on for another 30 seconds.
Putting these two problems together and I think that you have a bit of a turkey inside an otherwise very interesting movie.
Of course, Pacino is great in the movie when he works with small gestures, and the Milton part is sometimes intriguing -- a fine example of the RIGHT combination of the two is in the subway scene with the two hispanic hoodlums. I wish there would have been more of that and less loud, maniac monologues. Oh, and that false teeth prosthetic looks really strange on Pacino... in some scenes he looks like a real doofus. Weird.
Keanu Reeves was very good (as he sometimes is), as is Charlize Theron. The movie has lots of clever ideas and memorable scenes. It's also pretty unpleasant. I like the triple ending, though I can see how people may feel ripped off.
Could have been truly great. Too bad. I gave it a 7 / 10.