Interesting indeed, but somewhat overdone.

Rating: 6/10 (26 September 2010)

the Devil's Advocate (based on the novel by Andrew Neiderman) provides rousing drama with satisfactory flair and presentation. At the same time however, the story is equally heavy and cumbersome. With each chapter passing, another plot component is added, which for a while makes everything all the more interesting, but at a certain point, you start to feel lost. The Devil's Advocate seems confused in direction. In an attempt to answer all the questions that are posed, the movie's ending is painfully overlong and ridiculous. Well if nothing else at least it gives the cinematographer and effects department something epic to work with. The Devil's Advocate is a lengthy movie. The finished project is not uninteresting, and in fact it is frequently involving, but you get the impression that it is trying too hard.
As far as a Keanu Reeves film goes, this motion picture is a step in the right direction. Ironically though it doesn't qualify as a good performance. It only seems that way because he shares the screen frequently with Charlize Theron who upstages him with badness. Her delivery is so over wrought, that it denies common sense. Al Pachino is stable for a while, but during the course of the movie's last third, he goes into Scarface mode, and flies off the handle. I have yet to come across a movie in which the devil taking human form is justified in intelligence by an actor's performance. Outside of these people, (and Craig T. Nelson) nobody else in the cast serves a function other than killing screen time. So much goes on in the Devil's Advocate, but too little of it becomes important.
As a thriller, The Devil's Advocate finds success. A good word to use would be 'startling'. I can recommend the film on the grounds that it feels original and viscerally entertaining, but it lacks a sense of fluidity or general intelligence. It could use a bit of a reworking.