Amazon.com Essentials:
Too old for Hamlet and too young for Lear--what's an ambitious
actor to do? Play the Devil, of course. Jack Nicholson did it in
The Witches of Eastwick; Robert De Niro did it in Angel
Heart (as Louis Cyphre--get it?). In The Devil's Advocate
Al Pacino takes his turn as the great Satan, and clearly relishes his
chance to raise hell. He's a New York lawyer, of course, by the name
of John Milton, who recruits a hotshot young Florida attorney (Keanu
Reeves) to his firm and seduces him with tempting offers of power,
sex, and money. Think of the story as a twist on John Grisham's The Firm, with the
corporate evil made even more explicit. Reeves is wooden, and
therefore doesn't seem to have much of a soul to lose, but he's really
just our excuse to meet the devil. Pacino's the main attraction,
gleefully showing off his--and the Antichrist's--chops at perpetrating
menace and mayhem. The film was directed by Taylor Hackford
(Against All Odds, Dolores Claiborne), who provides
alternate-track commentary for the movie itself, plus a dozen deleted
scenes. Also note: due to a settlement with artist Frederick Hart over
the movie's use of a sculpture resembling his Ex Nihilo in
Washington's National Cathedral, future releases of the film will be
altered. --Jim Emerson
Amazon.com Essentials:
Too old for Hamlet and too young for Lear--what's an ambitious
actor to do? Play the Devil, of course. Jack Nicholson did it in
The Witches of Eastwick; Robert De Niro did it in Angel
Heart (as Louis Cyphre--get it?). In The Devil's Advocate
Al Pacino takes his turn as the great Satan, and clearly relishes his
chance to raise hell. He's a New York lawyer, of course, by the name
of John Milton, who recruits a hotshot young Florida attorney (Keanu
Reeves) to his firm and seduces him with tempting offers of power,
sex, and money. Think of the story as a twist on John Grisham's The Firm, with the
corporate evil made even more explicit. Reeves is wooden, and
therefore doesn't seem to have much of a soul to lose, but he's really
just our excuse to meet the devil. Pacino's the main attraction,
gleefully showing off his--and the Antichrist's--chops at perpetrating
menace and mayhem. The film was directed by Taylor Hackford
(Against All Odds, Dolores Claiborne), who provides
alternate-track commentary for the movie itself, plus a dozen deleted
scenes. Also note: due to a settlement with artist Frederick Hart over
the movie's use of a sculpture resembling his Ex Nihilo in
Washington's National Cathedral, future releases of the film will be
altered. --Jim Emerson
