The Devil's Advocate
Summary
A hotshot lawyer gets an obviously guilty child molester acquitted, and shortly after during the victory celebration gets offered an opportunity to show his prowess in New York City. The lawyer, Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves) is not offered a job yet, he is asked to simply pick a jury. He accepts. The jury he selects work out well and before long he is offered a job with the firm. Making his decision easy is the fact that not only is he offered big money, but a gorgeous apartment. He convinces his wife, Mary Ann (Charlize Theron) to make the move to New York.
The first case given to him is a big test; a "winless" case concerning a man who sacrifices animals in his basement. The charge was health code violations and Kevin once again shows his skill and earns an acquittal. His new boss and partner in the firm, John Milton (Al Pacino) is quite impressed and takes Kevin under his wing, explaining many of his philosophies on law, women and sex, and angles the promise of a blissful, wealthy life. Kevin's next case is a dream case, given to him by Milton himself (much to the chagrin to his colleagues), defending a triple murder suspect who has had a history of problems with the law.
Although Kevin's career is taking off, his home life is not doing very well. Mary Ann is starting to have numerous problems. She is experiencing severe depression over Kevin's long hours, and before long is having horrible dreams and hallucinations of people turning into ghouls, their faces becoming horribly disfigured. Kevin does not help matters by dismissing his wife. He does not spend more time with her as he explains to Milton that he needs to spend as much time on the case as possible to get it over with, then focus all of his attention on his wife. Not helping matters is the fact that Kevin is having ideas about a possible affair with a sexy lawyer (Connie Nielson) also working with the firm.
Mary Ann falls deeper into her madness as Kevin spends more time away from home. Kevin eventually looses control of his life and has to institutionalize his wife, and gets disturbing news from his mother (Judith Ivey) about the mystery concerning the identity of his father. He also starts to lose control of his case. Kevin learns that all of his problems have been caused by the work of one man. That man is his boss, Mr. Milton, a truly evil character who just may be the devil himself. Kevin must somehow confront Milton and thwart whatever diabolical plan he has in store. But how do you defeat the devil?
Commentary
Why is it that most courtroom scenes in the movies are absurd? Do filmmakers really believe that "normal" courtroom drama doesn't fit the bill and they have to juice them up? The courtroom scenes in this movie would never happen in a real courtroom, which wouldn't have been too bad if it weren't Keanu Reeves trying to pull it off. I give Reeves credit for trying hard, but throughout the movie I never saw the Kevin Lomax character, just an actor trying very hard to play Kevin Lomax and coming up short. Charlize Theron defines the term "over-the-top" in her performance as Mary Ann Lomax, a disappointment in contrast to her good performance in "2 Days in the Valley".
The only good performance in the movie is by Al Pacino, but I kept asking myself what the heck he was doing in this mess? Maybe he felt it would be interesting playing the devil, and you can tell he is having fun doing so, but his skill as an actor cannot save the poor performances and lackluster script that surround him. It's pretty standard stuff, including the fact that the hotshot lawyer appears to be the only competent person on the planet who can do anything right in the courtroom.
Please read no further if you do not want the ending spoiled, but I have to get something off of my chest. In 1986 I remember watching a movie called "Wisdom" with Emilio Estevez and Demi Moore, and the ending of that film did the worst possible thing that a movie could do. What I like to call "Guess what, it was all a dream" scenario. In "Wisdom" the two lead characters are killed at the end, only to have one of the characters "wake up" from an apparent and say "Gosh, I'm glad that didn't really happen!". I considered it inexcusable the way the audience was toyed with. Well, the same thing happens in "The Devils Advocate", and although arguments could be made surrounding whether it was actually a dream (perhaps Milton went back in time to try a different route for his plan, since it failed and he is the Devil), but the point is that the last 90% of the film didn't happen. I know it's a stretch, after all it is a movie and nothing really happened, but I just get annoyed to get toyed with like that.
Of course, the dream ending could almost be forgiven if the story that precedes it was at least an interesting one. As I recall, "Wisdom" was a decent film. "The Devil's Advocate" is not.
The Devils Advocate * (out of five)
Directed by Taylor Hackford John Milton..................Al Pacino Kevin Lomax................Keanu Reeves Mary Ann Lomax...........Charlize Theron Mrs. Lomax..................Judith Ivey Eddie Barzoon...............Jeffrey Jones Christabella..................Connie Nielson
Written by Randy Turgeon, March 18, 1998.
Randy Turgeon
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