A very well executed film with interesting ideas and themes.

Rating: 8/10 (22 October 2017)

I thoroughly enjoyed this film as an artistic view on the dark side of humanity. It explored themes of morality and temptation and free will. Keanu Reeves plays Kevin, a successful lawyer that's never lost a case that is offered a job at a powerful firm in New York, Charlize Theron plays his wife Mary Ann, and Al Pacino plays Kevin's boss and mentor who is revealed to actually be his father and Satan himself.
The more successful Kevin gets, the more he tends to end up abandon his wife. The film brings the idea that we are tempted by Satan to commit evil acts. But he doesn't control us and make us do these things, rather he tempts us with promises of whatever we desire, or whispers ideas into our heads and we do evil things in reaction and of our free will. Which I found to be a powerful message. The idea of the big, cold New York City being the "devil's land" or "the city of Babylon" was a nice touch.
People may have a problem with the nudity, but I was fine with it. It was an important part of the story. The female body and sex is shown to be another aspect of temptation.
So the whole point of the movie is, the devil exists and pushes humanity to do whatever we want for our own selfish desires, but at the end of the day what we do is all of free will. We have free will to give in to the temptations, just as we have the free will to resist and try and stay as morally good as we can.
My only problem with this film is Keanu Reeves. He was very good in this film, its just emotion was needed in a few scenes. Especially the death of his wife. He is crying and screaming as she dies in front of him, yet the very next scene he is walking down the hallway with his emotionless face and mono tone voice again. Dude, your wife just died. I would still be in a little moment of shock and sadness. I would just break down in tears a little here and there as it hits me over and over that my wife is dead, my voice would be in different tones. Nope, he is back into the usual emotion again, with barely any sadness under his monotone voice and facial expressions.
Other than that, Al Pacino is amazing, Charlize Theron is also good. A very good entertaining flick, with a dark atmosphere and a powerful message on the deep root of evil in humanity.