In “The Devil’s Advocate,” Al Pacino, cast as the Devil, seizes his part with infernal relish. He plays the hell out of the role.
It’s a comic performance, like Walter Huston’s great gleeful Mr. Scratch in 1941’s “The Devil and Daniel Webster.” And, like Huston’s, it works spectacularly well — even though Pacino (despite the evidence of his Oscar-winning “Scent of a Woman”) isn’t normally thought of as what this movie proves him to be: an absolutely brilliant comedy actor.
Perhaps over the years, he’s typed himself in the opposite direction: played too many brooding, wounded loners, turned his sad weary eyes too often and soulfully on the camera. Maybe he just poured too much angst into parts like Frank Serpico, Bobby Deerfield or Michael Corleone in “The Godfather.”
Yet Pacino has his devilish side, too, and he exposed it joyously while playing Shakespeare’s bad genius Richard III in the excerpted scenes in his 1996 documentary “Looking for Richard.” That’s the side he uses in “The Devil’s Advocate,” in his role as John Milton, the super-rich Manhattan attorney who is really hell’s emissary.
Toward the end of this sometimes shockingly entertaining nightmare comedy about evil and ambition, Pacino launches into a great climactic monologue: an all-stops-out tirade of satanic self-aggrandizement that has to rank as one of the great killer comedy turns in any American movie in years. It’s a show-stopping moment and this scene will probably be talked about until the end of Pacino’s career — just as we talk about Jack Nicholson’s furious tantrums in “Five Easy Pieces, “Carnal Knowledge” and “The Last Detail.”
Playing the polished, glib and sinfully self-confident international lawyer John Milton, Pacino reveals the devil below in dozens of ways: in his explosiveness, his cunning, his glittering feral eyes and flicking tongue, and even in the ever-burning fire in his gargantuan office fireplace. And he shows it all when he finally faces honestly, in that killer scene, the character he’s been tormenting and toying with all movie long: Keanu Reeves, as hotshot defense attorney Kevin Lomax.
“Devil’s” was directed by Taylor Hackford and co-written by Jonathan Lemkin and Tony Gilroy — a writer who previously worked with Hackford on “Dolores Claiborne.” In a way, this new movie is like the “Damn Yankees” version of John Grisham’s legal thriller “The Firm.” In bright, jazzy scenes, we watch Lomax shed his morality, idealism and even his closest personal relationship: to his wife, Mary Ann (Charlize Theron), a buoyant blond driven mad and mousy by the insidious Milton. We watch Lomax getting more estranged from Mary Ann and ensnared by Manhattan’s expensive world of moneyed elites, pricey pleasures, exclusive apartments and restaurants. Guided by Milton, we watch him get the good jobs, the classy office suites, the top assignments, the sexiest women.
We see him win a tough case for a local guru who specializes in animal sacrifices (played by the unbilled Delroy Lindo) and later defend a vicious real estate millionaire, Alexander Cullen (Craig T. Nelson), who slaughtered his wife. That’s the context in which Milton finally lowers the Mephistophelean boom on Lomax. Standing against his own office wall frieze of erotic figures (which begin to move and writhe wildly behind him), Milton reveals what he really thinks, feels and knows about society, politics, morality, the legal profession and the way we live now. It’s an all-stops-out comic aria of hellish glee, a shining-eyed litany to greed, selfishness and callousness.
Pacino’s performance doesn’t overpower he film, though. “The Devil’s Advocate” is a clever fantasy comedy about destiny, about taking the wrong step, cunningly constructed from the start. Lomax’s descent begins when he decides to fight to acquit his own disgusting client — a child molester he knows is guilty — to keep his string of courtroom victories alive. Then, hell beckons.
Reeves plays Lomax with a light Southern accent and a look of athletic watchfulness; and though his performance is far less showy than Pacino’s, he balances it nicely. Lomax is a winner because he’s a genius at selecting juries. But, in a way, the movie suggests only half-kiddingly that the legal profession itself is in league with the devil, corrupted by too much money as surely as politics (or the movies) are corrupted.
Selling out at the top of the legal world was also the central theme of “The Firm,” which had Tom Cruise as the talented young lawyer seduced by a corrupt legal firm. But “The Devil’s Advocate” is more entertaining. And better-looking, sexier, juicier, funnier. “The Devil’s Advocate” may be another Big Hollywood roller-coaster ride, but it’s not an empty one.
The greatest screen Devils — Emil Jannings in “Faust,” Michel Simon in “Beauty and the Devil,” Huston in “Daniel Webster” or Peter Cook in “Bedazzled” — often seem to enjoy themselves hugely, while the rest of the world slogs along, burdened by morality, constipated by goodness. That’s the special kick of Pacino’s performance. He conveys clearly why Milton — who obviously got his name from the writer of “Paradise Lost” — is not just the Devil but a fallen angel. And he and Hackford deliciously show us the tainted paradise that Lucifer offers his top employees. Pacino, with fire in his belly and fire in his eyes, shows us a hell of a time.
”THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE”
(star) (star) (star) 1/2
Directed by Taylor Hackford; written by Jonathan Lemkin, Tony Gilroy, based on the novel by Andrew Niederman; photographed by Andrzej Bartkowiak; edited by Mark Warner; production designed by Bruno Rubeo; music by James Newton Howard; produced by Arnon Milchan, Arnold Kopelson, Anne Kopelson. A Warner Bros. release; opens Friday. Running time: 2:18. MPAA rating: R. Language, sensuality, nudity, violence.
THE CAST
Kevin Lomax …………………….. Keanu Reeves
John Milton …………………….. Al Pacino
Mary Ann Lomax ………………….. Charlize Theron
Eddie Barzoon …………………… Jeffrey Jones
Mrs. Lomax ……………………… Judith Ivey
Alexander Cullen ………………… Craig T. Nelson
Christabella ……………………. Connie Nielsen
Character ………………………. Delroy Lindo
