THE DEVIL'S OWN
A film review by Walter Frith
Copyright 1997 Walter Frith
Columbia Pictures was quite upset with Brad Pitt recently when Pitt made statements to the media that 'The Devil's Own' was one of the worst filmmaking experiences he had ever had. Pitt later recanted those statements but the cat was already out of the bag and while this motion picture isn't really all that bad, it does have large plot holes and one dimensional characterizations.
A terrorist in the IRA (Pitt) escapes justice in Northern Ireland in 1992 where he is hunted for the deaths of twenty four people. The people he's been involved in murdering are a combination of police officers and British soldiers and Pitt flees to America where he makes connections to take up residence with a family headed by Harrison Ford who is a New York City police officer. Pitt passes himself off as a landed immigrant with a construction job to go to so the family never learns at first what the true objective of his visit is. His true objective while in New York is to purchase military hardware, mostly missles from and arms dealer (Treat Williams). Ford's family is dragged into the chaos which erupts as Pitt becomes the target of many of his enemies.
The movie's psychological profile of Pitt's involvement in terrorism stems from the fact that as a boy of eight, he witnessed the murder of his father by an intruding gun man one evening as his family was sitting down to dinner. Ford's character has an attack of conscience on two fronts. One by helping bring Pitt in to the authorities alive once Pitt's cover is blown and the other involves Ford lying to protect his partner (Ruben Blades) who is being investigated for shooting a robbery suspect in the back.
Director Alan J. Pakula ('All the President's Men', 'Sophie's Choice', 'Consenting Adults') uses silence in many scenes to make the picture's atmosphere more powerful without disruptive music or loud action sound. Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford have some good moments on film together but 'The Devil's Own' lacks plot and character development wide enough for the movie to justify its running time of almost two hours courtesy of screenwriters David Aaron Cohen, Vincent Patrick and Kevin Jarre based on Jarre's story. It does have a convincing story about clandestine terrorism gone awry but looks too much like the studio was trying to use big name stars to rake in the dollars when stars of much less notoriety could have pulled it off.
OUT OF 5> * * *
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