Al Pacino had a sinfully good time playing the biggest bad in The Devil’s Advocate
Film Lists Al Pacino
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The Devil’s Advocate (1997)
It may be hard to believe now, basking in the joy of Al Pacino’s recent performances in The Irishman and Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood, but there was a time in the 1990s when his gifts for hammy bombast were regarded with a stern wariness. After winning an overdue Oscar for, yes, hammy bombast personified in Scent Of A Woman, Pacino went on a watchlist, with critics and fans ready to flag every sinful indulgence of his more outsized actorly tendencies.
Accordingly, 1997 found his quiet (and excellent) performance in Donnie Brasco embraced, while his work in The Devil’s Advocate was—to some degree—condemned. Like Brasco, Devil’s Advocate pairs Pacino with a younger, Gen-X actor, often in a series of walk-and-talks where he gives his young costar the lay of the land. Here, Pacino’s would-be mentee is Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves), a prodigiously talented lawyer from Florida, courted by John Milton (Pacino), the head of a high-powered New York law firm. As it turns out, Pacino is actually playing Satan. A non-metaphorical, non-subtextual Old Scratch.
Inevitably, this means Pacino will rant and holler with fiery impunity. With this in mind, the movie, paced with the leisurely, luxury-class confidence of the John Grisham adaptations it shamelessly literalizes, holds Pacino back slightly. He doesn’t speak until the 20-minute mark, and for a while turns up occasionally, as Lomax wrestles with his conscience and spars with his wife Mary Ann (Charlize Theron), who does not take to a life of Manhattan-housewife leisure. “I’m a surprise,” Milton tells Lomax at one point, expounding on his strength as a lawyer. “They don’t see me coming.” Quite the contrary, though: The precise pleasure of The Devil’s Advocate is that the audience does see him coming—even if the trailers didn’t spoil Milton’s identity, the title does—and has to wait a while for Pacino to reveal his full demonic splendor.
In the meantime, Pacino plays his evil like a self-amused card sharp. Rather than going big right away, he slips little improprieties and insinuations into conversation, sometimes speechifying on a smaller scale as he works up to his big, climactic showpiece. That long riff, where Milton lays out his case against God and for himself, is supremely satisfying—a 15-minute action sequence where the fireworks are Pacino’s teasing hand gestures and booming voice as he mockingly exposes God’s contradictory rules. (“Look, but don’t touch. Touch, but don’t taste.”) This is the most famous section of the movie; it does, after all, feature Pacino screaming about God being an absentee landlord as living-statue bodies writhe in the background. But it’s not the movie’s only standout monologue; there’s also a strong appetizer earlier on, with Pacino going on about a doomed colleague he deems “God’s special little creature.”
By design, the rest of the movie cannot be so slickly verbose. Yet Reeves, in his earnest and grasping way, makes a fine scene partner for Pacino; they were both underestimated in the ’90s before more people came around to their respective acting styles of that period. Like a lot of Reeves performances from around this time, this one is effective, even when he mouth-wrestles a questionable Southern drawl (“AH DON’T LOSE! AH WIN!”). Both the character and the actor are grappling with the thankless task of slipping into a Tom Cruise role, just as Charlize Theron’s self-annihilating angst offers a sort of meta-commentary on the thanklessness of the worried-wife archetype.
Theron gives the role her all, as she and Connie Nielsen bear the brunt of the movie’s frequent turns into exploitative sleaze. As a legal drama and parable, The Devil’s Advocate is also overlong and obvious, directed with a characteristic lack of subtlety by Taylor Hackford. But at least its moralistic grandstanding assumes a grim, fatalistic quality that goes beyond the reductive notion of the sinful big city. Instead, sin is everywhere. Like Al Pacino going on a delightful overacting tear, it’s impossible to avoid. Doubters will come around eventually.
Availability: The Devil’s Advocate is currently streaming with ads on Tubi and without them on HBO Max. It’s also available to rent or purchase digitally on Amazon, Google, YouTube, Microsoft, Redbox, AMC On Demand, DirecTV, and VUDU.
95 Comments
This movie is sleazy garbage. But it is an absolute-freaking-blast! Seen it a million times. And I’ll watch it every time I come across it.
Loved playing “Where’d Keanu’s accent go?” It’s so random in its appearances.
So random and so bad! Love it. You’ll get a kick out of this: I went to law school at UF. I saw this in Gainesville. IN 1997! And of course the funny thing is UF isn’t really a “southern” school like most SEC schools. The school, and the law school, draws people from all over the country. I don’t have a southern accent. And I could probably count on one hand the amount of people who I went to school with who did have a southern accent. In other words, Keanu didn’t have to have an accent! I get it that it perhaps make him seem like a rube when he’s not. But, ya know, there are other ways to make that point besides a southern drawl … particularly when the actor is bad at it.
It’s my second favorite Keanu accent after Bram Stoker’s Dracula. But the ne plus ultra of spotty accents is Ewan McGregor in Nightwatch.
LOL I remember hearing somewhere Keanu said he was able to do a British accent in Bram Stoker’s Dracula because his mom’s British … yeah, it’s not exactly an accurate accent. But who cares, I’m a huge fan no matter what accent he’s doing or not quite doing.
Hoo-Ha! She’s got a GREAT ASS!
Go fig, I just happened to watch this for the first time in years this past weekend. Have always enjoyed it, but regarded it as a guilty pleasure. But this was my first time seeing it on blu, so my first time seeing the “Unrated” cut. Much like the extended cut of Jennifer’s Body, most of the extra content was simple, slowing down the editing to give the movie more room to breathe. It was an improvement, and elevated it in my esteem.
I’d suggest The Insider is when Pacino turned back into the great actor, with this the low/high point of the almost parody era.
I would suggest that Pacino has delivered as many subpar performances in super-sleepy mode (Simone, in 2002; 88 Minutes, whenever that garbage was) as in overacting mode… maybe more, because at least the overacting is fun. Like De Niro, he’s had some late-career misses that people sometimes try crush into a defining period where he was doing Bad Stuff. But both of them have been doing more good work than bad for most of their careers, unless you want to cut it down into like, three-year periods (which are kind of meaningless for actors since that can sometimes mean examining as few as 1 or 2 movies).
Yeah going through his films it does appear to be one or two missed then classic. I love over acting Pacino. It was the one I grew up with. Bit then I caught Dog Day Afternoon, followed by double hit of Insider and Insomnia and totally changed my view of him (admittedly then went back and rewatched Godfather and realised how amazing he was in that).
Insomnia is a master class. Pacino is fantastic. Williams is a revelation. Hillary Swank is insanely overqualified.
Oh, why did John Cazale have to go so early?….. I want to cry every time he’s on.
So do we all.
But what a run he had. Just 5 proper feature acting credits on IMDB – they were Godfather I and II, Dog Day, The Conversation and Dear Hunter. Every one a masterpiece.
2002 saw both sides of Pacino (and Robin Williams) in Insomnia which I remember being very good
I think the big diff in later-stage Deniro and Pacino is Pacino still cares. Deniro can still give a good performance if a role is suited perfectly to him, but anything outside of that is pretty bad – The Comedian was awful, I still think h didn’t come close to delivering with his small part in Joker, a part a better actor could have killed despite the brevity. I think he’s out of practice, doesn’t care much, and has to be coaxed into a good performance by a director he respects. Pacino might go over-the-top too much and he’s appeared in some dreck, but I never feel like he’s checked out, and when he is able to modulate, he’s still great.
I don’t think it’s that De Niro doesn’t care so much as he seems to really like to work, whether to keep busy or for the money or whatever else, and there aren’t really *that* many parts for a 70something actor who seemingly wants make multiple movies each year. His old-man comedies are mostly terrible, but there are plenty of later-period highlights, even beyond the usual David O. Russell and The Irishman stuff: Thought he was delightful in The Intern, intense and effective in Stone, amusingly hammy in Limitless and Red Lights… he’s still got it when the material calls for it.
The Intern was a snuggly warm blanket of a performance. I dug it and still do when the time is right for it.
The Insider is in my top 5. I am amazed how many people haven’t seen or don’t recognize that movie. Moves me every time.
I’m being pedantic, but it always irritated me that Pacino is literally supposed to be a lawyer who is also the Devil. The title is The Devil’s Advocate. Pacino should be a mortal who happens to be the Devil’s lawyer, not the Devil himself!
I thought he was the Devil who is also a lawyer.
I guess it depends on how meaningful the job is to him. Like is Christopher Guest an actor/screenwriter/director/musician who is also a Baron, or is he a Baron who is also those things?
Ah, but is it not Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves) who is the devil’s advocate in this case?! He’s not Pacino’s lawyer in the sense of his representative, but he is “his” in that he is employed by him!
Whoa!(…to quote another famous Keanu role)
I got the impression that Lomax (Keanu’s character) was the titular devil’s advocate.
The offer was to be The Devil’s advocate, but *spoiler* he doesn’t accept
But he does (initially). Eventually, he changes his mind.
As others have already weighed in on, Keanu is the Devil’s advocate, i.e. the lawyer who belongs to the Devil. That the Devil himself is, in this case, also a lawyer is just a happy coincidence.
As others have already weighed in on, Keanu is the Devil’s advocate, i.e. the lawyer who belongs to the Devil. That the Devil himself is, in this case, also a lawyer is just a happy coincidence.
Lomax is the central character with his rise, pride, temptation, fall, and eventual damnation being the whole point of the story. The Devil is just running his game as usual. The whole vibe I got from Pacino’s portrayal was that he’s done it before and he’ll do it again, There will always be another young, full-of-himself lawyer who’ll take the bait.
Keanu is the advocate, I think.
I think the title refers to Keanu, not Pacino.
This was a cool movie. And not just because of the burning bush.
I love that Reeves’s dirtbag client is so clearly inspired by Donald Trump. I think they even used his penthouse.
I enjoyed, and felt bad, for Pacino’s ‘Lefty’ in Donnie Brasco. Just wonderfully played.His work in this and Ocean’s 13 was fine.
Check out the book. You’ll feel less bad.
The real Lefty Ruggiero got exactly what he deserved. Pacino did some fine work portraying him.
It’s been years since I’ve read the books, but I think I remember a person showing up in Wiseguy, by Nicholas Pileggi, also showing up, but as an undercover agent, in Donnie Brasco. My name also showed up in Wiseguy, which was fun.
“AH DON’T LOSE! AH WIN!”Up there with “Ah don’t waunt yer lahf!” in the bad Southern accent pantheon.
Or Costner’s terrible Kennedy-style accent in Thirteen Days“Wait a minute! This isn’t yah permission slip. This is yah rahpart caaard”
I remember enjoying this movie, although I don’t remember much about it. The thought that immediately springs to mind from back then was telling a friend that I’d thought “The Devil’s Own”, starring Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt, had been decent, and he snapped back “that wasn’t even the best movie this year to begin with “The Devil’s”!
I absolutely love his closing speech in that movie. It’s so delightfully unhinged and over-the-top that they probably had to throw out every last piece of scenery because of teeth marks.
He reminds me of Palpatine at the end of Revenge. I like it when bad guys are just gleeful about it.
“He’s LAUGHING!!! HIS SICK FUCKIN’ ASS OFF!!!”
I truly don’t hate this. Hammy as all hell, but he nails that “Never.”
I love this movie. I would never argue it’s a great movie, but man it is “delicious.” It is such confident schlock, such a high-end B-movie. It feels like one of those violent renaissance paintings about the Bible come to life in a modern setting – sure, no subtlety, but it’s a biblical fable wrapped in a legal horror-thriller: why would I want subtlety from that??And yet, as you say, Pacino’s performance seems like it’s been judged by people who’ve only seen that last monologue. If anyone overacts through most of the movie, it’s Reeves and Theron, who go to pretty over-the-top soap opera boiling points over and over. Pacino IS relatively restrained, and has a quiet confidence and mystery that makes the final reveal work specifically because he hasn’t hammed it up but you know he freakin’ wants to. Plus, I’m sorry to anyone who disagrees, but that last monologue is GREAT. Again, it’s not great in the way Coen Brothers or Billy Wilder speeches are great, but for this movie, for what it’s setting out to do? What a climax! “I’m a FAN O’ MAN!” Kitsch does not get better than this.
While I enjoy this movie, and Al Pacino especially in his full-bore Pacino-ing, I still maintain that John Glover’s devil in the short-lived, almost completely forgotten 90s series Brimstone is the gold standard.
I tracked down a, ahem, copy of the single season and, while the storylines and production are pretty standard “bad guy of the week” 90s basic-cable fare, John Glover’s Satan is pitch perfect.
“Yes, yes, now that’s what I like to hear. The indomitable spirit and righteous indignation of the human species. I’ve heard it a million times defending a million atrocities, and it’s still music to my ears.”
that show was cool as hell
Holy shit, John Glover. I’m still traumatized from this TV movie he did in the ‘80s where he was a dad who set his son on fire. He is very very good at playing very very bad people.
“His name is Bryce Cummings. He’s an LA slimeball.”
…as living-statue bodies writhe in the background.
The lawsuit over that statue was probably the best accidental marketing for any movie in the 90’s. Still, it bugs me a little that the original version many of us watched in theaters is now locked away in some vault, never to be screened again.The visual effects in this movie were pretty amazing at the time, and used sparingly enough that I think they still hold up pretty well today.
I love this movie unabashedly, party for what Jesse calls its “leisurely, luxury-class confidence” and partly because it was the first movie I watched after moving to NYC. The movie’s mix of glitz and silliness matches that of Giuliani’s New York (pre-9/11), at least in my mind. My favorite scene is Pacino and Keanu walking along the ledge of that skyscraper, but I also love the part where Pacino speaks Spanish to that guy on the subway, telling him to go kill his cheating wife.
I love that Jeffrey Jones plays a gross lawyer named Eddie Barzoon who IIRC gets murdered by a gang of demonic children.
Correction: just remembered it’s demonic homeless people.
That skyscraper shot where the water looks like it’s disappearing off the edge is incredible
One of my teachers in art school worked on the set design for the final scene. He told us a bunch of stories about this shoot.Keanu would sit in a chair between shots and practice “Listening”The makeup on the models in the sculpture were so realistic that it would freak out set builders when they moved between shots.He was resting against a wall taking a break when someone put their elbow on his back to pretend to use him as a rest. When he looked up to yell at the person, he found himself face to face with Pacino, who said “Us short guys have to stick together”Pacino sounded generally amazing on this set.
“Hey, you have the same name as the author of Paradise Lost! You’re not Satan, are you?” (Laughs)“Oy, if I had a nickel for every time someone pointed that out, and jokingly asked me that!” (Laughs) “But, yes, yes I am…No, seriously, I am. You shouldn’t have come to work for me. Flee with your beautiful and sane wife, right now.”
Love this movie. The cast is pretty stacked too, beyond Pacino, Reeves, and Theron.
I saw the movie in the theater, and have not rewatched it since. Fun to think about it again out of the blue. Can think of a few specific scenes but mostly have general impressions left at this points, and kind of agree with most of the article’s sentiments.I’ve mostly been able to enjoy Reeves’ particularly laconic style, and he’s made some good movies, especially when he is paired with somebody with a little more, um, range (Swayze, Bullock etc.)I don’t really remember thinking Pacino overplayed this role at the time, he was the devil after all. He had to blow up eventually. He made a role that was obviously precarious from the start work just fine and the result was an enjoyable movie. To me that qualifies as good acting.And yes, Donnie Brasco was a masterpiece, it’s my second favorite mob movie after Goodfellas.
And just think, Pacino could have (should have) played the Devil again this year in WandaVision. We were robbed, dammit!
this is one of my favorite films and it’s my very favorite Pacino film
Al Pacino’s performance in The Devil’s Advocate is a damned fine portrayal of everything we might imagine Satan would be if we met him in the flesh, especially if he’s a lawyer. I mean, why wouldn’t he be a lawyer. As they say, the devil’s in the details…However, I think the best movie Satan of all time is Robert De Niro as Louis Cipher in Angel Heart. He didn’t really have much dialog, but damn if he wasn’t the scariest SOB I’ve seen on screen. Ever. At one point he turned the simple act of eating a hard-boiled egg into metaphorically devouring a soul and totally sold it. Even atheists stepped back and said “holy shit!”He was absolutely chilling.
Al Pacino’s performance in The Devil’s Advocate is a damned fine portrayal of everything we might imagine Satan would be if we met him in the flesh, especially if he’s a lawyer. I mean, why wouldn’t he be a lawyer. As they say, the devil’s in the details…Reminds me of this joke:
An engineer comes to the Pearly Gates. St. Peter can’t find him in his book, so under the engineer’s protest, he’s sent down to Hell.A while later, St. Peter calls Hell “Hello, Satan? Remember that engineer we sent down a while ago?” “Oh, yes, splendid chap. You should see what he turned this place into! We have escalators, air conditioning, the works!” “No, no, that was a clerical error, please send him back immediately!” “Hah! No chance, Pete, he’s just working on an funicular across ALL NINE circles of Hell!” “You’ll send him back immediately!” “Or what?” “Or we’ll sue you!” “Oh, is that right? And from where, pray tell, would YOU take a lawyer?”
Yes, lawyers are the very definition of a necessary evil.
I seriously doubt your fun at parties.
do not doubt my fun at parties
I loved the over-the-topness of Pacino’s performance in this movie. It works very well because John Milton-as-devil and John Milton-as-filthy rich lawyer knows that he’ll never face consequences. As long as he maintains enough superficial charming enough to draw in his targets, he can do anything he wants. Almost everyone in his social circle understands this on an unconscious level and (Mary Ann excepted) is seduced by that kind of power. Milton’s behavior tracks as far as him being the devil, but on another level, he’s just a really intelligent and well resourced sociopath who knows how to engage in just enough public boundary-pushing that people both expect and forgive his bad behavior. (Oh, that’s just John. Yes, his behavior can be a bit inappropriate, but I’m sure he would never do anything truly awful.)
Even time I eat a hard-boiled egg, I quote Loius Cypher. So iconic.Though, I must admit that there is still one more portrayal that I find even better and more effective than DeNiro, if you can believe it: Viggo Mortensen in (the otherwise middling) The Prophecy. Not only does he completely upstage Christopher Walken, he manages drip absolute menace even with the softest of vocal tones.The Devil seriously gets all the best actors, man.
It’s always more fun to play the villain.
Vanity. Definitely my favorite sin!
Tried to watch this recently. Apart from the ridiculously gorgeous Theron, it bored me senseless. (not a long journey at the best of times)
Pacino’s “Fan of Man” speech tracks closely with the Grand Inquisitor’s speech in The Brothers Karamazov. I love that the Devil’s Advocate director and/or writer decided to go for Dostoevsky, but trashy.
A great guilty pleasure watch for me!
Seeing this movie in the theater was my first “date” with my now wife, so it also has that going for it.
“The Devil’s Advocate is also overlong and obvious, directed with a characteristic lack of subtlety by Taylor Hackford”Gurl please. It is a movie called The Devil’s Advocate which is literally what the title says. You cannot take this kind of Larry Cohen script and do subtlety with it. Taylor Hackford actually did marvels with the material he was given during his entire career.Compare this to the Sidney Lumet “Guilty as Sin” (from a Larry Cohen script) to see why you cannot do this over the top lawyering stuff with subtlety.
These aren’t criticisms so much as statements of facts. It is way too long, it’s all pretty obvious, and it’s not subtle. That’s fine! Movies don’t have to be subtle to be good.
But do you think it would have been better if it were directed with ambiguity and subtlety? EDIT: no need to answer, you can send me to hell with Satan Pacino
I’m not Jesse Hassenger — but, no. The movie’s written to be big and broad and all “HOO-Hah!”, not ambiguous and subtle.You don’t cast Al Pacino for ambiguity and subtlety — not anymore. Keanu Reeves can certainly underplay, but when he does he usually seems more like a beautiful plank of wood than someone with a teeming inner life.
To me, this entire movie plays like a sneaky, snarky dark comedy, so the more ridiculous it gets the better.
Larry Cohen? The credited screenwriters are Jonathan Lemkin and Tony Gilroy. I wouldn’t be surprised if Cohen took a pass at it, but if so it was sub rosa.
No, I meant it has a very Larry Cohen vibe. And it is very similar to what “Guilty as Sin” was telling – that one written by Cohen – which I believe, I DEFEND YOUR HONOR it does not work as well because it does not go all the way to the pulpy exagerated top.
Oh, I see now!Okay — thanks for clarifying.
for all Pacino’s ham, his reading of “…oh, i have so many names…” is lovely. But Keanu is awful in this. My favourite moment is close to the beginning, when one of Pacino’s cronies hands Keanu a business card. Keanu reads the name on the card, and his reading is terrible. Thats right, he couldn’t even read aloud convincingly.
“Taste!…don’t swallow. HA HA HA!!!!!!”
If you decide to watch this, afterward be sure to listen to the episode of “How Did This Get Made” podcast where they discuss it. You can thank me later.
As a native southerner, I must call out Keanu Reeves for the absolute worst attempt at a southern accent ever in the history of moving pictures. It is a steaming turd in the middle of an otherwise great film. Ironically, South African Charlize Theron, as his wife, musters one of the best non-native southern accent I’ve ever heard in a film. She sounds like any of a dozen girls I went to high school with.See also: the way Keanu’s “British” accent is similarly jarring in “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Between these two movies, it was many, many years before I could legitimately see Keanu Reeves in a film without thinking “Ted trying not to sound like Ted.”
Watching this from time to time, my mind wanders to “John Wick and Atomic Blonde crossover when?”
this movie is not good but boy is it rewatchable.
Tony Gilroy has a talent for writing over-the-top endings that are also perfect. See also: Michael Clayton, Rogue One. (While it doesn’t have a bombastic ending, Dolores Claiborne is an underrated screenplay of his.)
There is a new version of this coming, basically, from the creators of Search Party which features Harvey Weinstein as an actual monster. Basically it’s like that movie THE ASSISTANT but not intentionally boring
I love this movie. It’s a masterpiece of tawdriness and scene chewing. Like a thinking-mans Wild Things… Or something.
Dumb, trashy fun fun fun is how I remember this one.
Saw it in the theater those 20+ years ago, and not again since. It was losing me in the middle when Theron was dealing with literal demons, and they were either doing a bad exploration of mental illness or taking a serious movie into unnecessary fantasy places. Pacino’s speech fully brought me around at the end. God, he was perfect.No idea how much of that I’ve butchered in my recollection, but there it is.
“Exploitative sleaze”Aaaah. Progressives. Always protecting their poor, fragile little women. No. The movie is about the Devil. It’s about lust. Plus, Keanu takes his clothes off at times too.