Review of The Devil's Advocate (1997) by Rainer K — 14 Jul 2012

The Devil's Advocate is a better movie than I thought it'd be. Considering that it could have easily been a corny mess, it tells the story of a man that bonds with the devil (a premise that's probably as old as mankind) with elegance and swiftness and benefits particularly from flawless casting.

Al Pacino is devilishly good (pun intented) and you totally buy his persuasive talents. Keanu Reeves on the other hand will probably never be a great actor but he's decent in the film and fills the frame of the shooting star lawyer pretty well. The rest of the cast does pretty well too, except maybe for Theron who seemed a bit unpolished acting-wise (I'm not going as far as to call her only a pretty face but there are certainly some scenes where she displays a limited skill set).

Anyways, John Grisham meets The Exorcist here and director Taylor Hackford created a unlikely homogeneous film. It's thrilling when it needs to be and a bit scary when the horror moments kick in (which are quite effective thanks to some neat special effects). A demonic court room drama so to say and, all in all, pretty good stuff.