7 / 10
A Lawyer Who Never Loses
Kevin Lomax is a small-town defense lawyer in Gainesville, Florida, and he’s never lost a case. The film opens with him defending a man he knows is guilty, and winning anyway, by tearing apart the victim on the stand. He goes to the bathroom afterwards and stares at himself in the mirror. He’s troubled, briefly. Then he celebrates.
A powerful New York firm notices and offers him a job. The money’s huge, the apartment’s enormous and the boss, John Milton, is charming, generous and very interested in him. Kevin says yes, of course. His wife, Mary Ann, comes along. His devout mother warns him that New York is Babylon. He goes anyway.
Taylor Hackford directed it, from Andrew Neiderman’s novel, and the premise is simple: a man who’ll do anything to win meets the one boss who’ll give him the chance.
For Writers
Kevin wins a case he knows he shouldn’t, stares at himself in the mirror and then celebrates. In one scene, the film establishes his flaw, his conscience and his choice to ignore it.
An opening scene that shows your protagonist choosing wrong, with full awareness, sets up the whole moral arc of a story. The reader knows the character has a conscience, and knows they can override it. Every later temptation will be measured against that first choice.
Write a scene early in your story where your protagonist hesitates, knows the right thing and does the wrong thing anyway. Keep the hesitation brief and specific: a look in a mirror, a pause at a door. The reader will remember it.
Al Pacino
Pacino plays Milton, and he’s having more fun than anybody has ever had playing Satan. He prowls, he growls, he dances, he flirts, he whispers and he screams. Every scene he’s in turns into a show, and he knows it. By the end he’s delivering a monologue about God as an absentee landlord and vanity as his favorite sin, and he’s practically levitating.
It’s one of the hammiest performances of Pacino’s career, and it’s glorious. Subtle it isn’t. But the Devil shouldn’t be subtle in a film this operatic, and Pacino gives the movie the energy it needs to get through its sillier stretches. He’s never boring for a second.
For Writers
Pacino plays the Devil loud, theatrical and enormously entertaining. The performance is too big for most films, and exactly right for this one.
If your villain feels flat, ask whether the story would let them be bigger. Sometimes you’ve simply never let them off the leash. Try one scene where they say exactly what they think, as loudly as they like, and see what happens.
Match your characters’ volume to your story’s tone. In a restrained literary story, a villain who rants would feel absurd. In an operatic melodrama, a quiet villain can get lost. Decide what kind of story you’re telling, then give your biggest character a performance the story can hold. Operatic stories need operatic villains. My piece on why villain motivations fall apart digs into this.
Keanu Reeves
Keanu Reeves plays Kevin, and he’s the film’s weak link. His Southern accent comes and goes, and he never quite convinces as a ruthless, brilliant trial lawyer. He looks worried, puzzled and handsome, and that’s about the range he gets to.
He’s not terrible, and there are moments where Kevin’s growing arrogance comes through. But next to Pacino, he’s like a man trying to hold a conversation with a hurricane, and it’s hard not to wish somebody else had got the part.
Charlize Theron
The best performance in the film belongs to Charlize Theron, in one of her first major roles, as Kevin’s wife, Mary Ann. She starts as a sweet, bright Southern girl, excited about New York. Then Kevin starts working all hours, the other lawyers’ wives are cold and strange, and she starts seeing things: faces changing, a baby playing with human organs, demons in the mirror.
Nobody believes her. Kevin, too busy winning, dismisses her as unstable. Theron plays her descent into terror and madness with such raw conviction that it’s painful to watch, and her story is the real tragedy of the film. It’s where you can see the actress who’d win an Oscar a few years later.
For Writers
Mary Ann sees demons, and nobody believes her. Her husband dismisses her as unstable. Her horror is the film’s real tragedy, because the audience knows she’s right.
Give one of your secondary characters a truth the protagonist refuses to hear. Let them try to tell it, and let them be dismissed. The reader will side with them, and the protagonist’s blindness will become a flaw the reader can feel. Just don’t let it drag on too long, or the protagonist starts to look stupid.
A character who sees the truth and isn’t believed is one of the most powerful sources of suspense and pathos in fiction. The reader aches for them, because they know what’s coming and can’t warn anyone.
The Firm
The law firm is a lovely nightmare: marble floors, huge windows, a rooftop pool, lawyers who never seem to sleep and a boss who knows everybody’s secrets. Jeffrey Jones plays Eddie Barzoon, the firm’s managing partner, sweaty and nervous and doomed. The cases Kevin takes are all about defending the guilty, and the film makes its point about lawyers with a hammer, over and over.
It’s a satire, broad and not very subtle, about ambition and what people sell to get ahead. Some of it lands. A lot of it is just fun, especially the moments when the film lets Pacino walk through Manhattan like he owns it.
The Monologue
The climax takes place in Milton’s penthouse office, and it’s where the film goes completely over the top. Milton reveals who he is, what Kevin is to him and what he wants from him, and Pacino delivers a ranting, raving sermon about God, free will and human vanity while the walls come alive behind him.
It’s ridiculous and it’s thrilling. The office wall features a huge sculpture of writhing bodies that moves as the scene goes on. The sculpture looked so much like an existing artwork by Frederick Hart that the artist sued, and the studio settled, altering the scene for later video releases.
Back in Gainesville
The ending twists back on itself in a way that’s either clever or a cheat, depending on your mood. Kevin makes a choice, the film rewinds and he finds himself back in the Florida courtroom where it began, given another chance. He does the right thing this time, or seems to.
Then the final scene reveals that vanity has him anyway. The joke is neat, and Pacino’s last grin is the perfect button on a film that never took itself too seriously.
Where It Falls Down
It’s too long, at nearly two and a half hours, and the middle sags. Reeves is miscast. The satire is heavy-handed, and some of the special effects look cheap today. The final rewind feels like the writers couldn’t decide on an ending.
The Devil’s Advocate is a big, silly, entertaining ride, carried by Pacino at his most outrageous and Theron at her most raw. Take it seriously and it falls apart. Enjoy it as a Gothic melodrama and it’s a blast.
Craft Note
Craft Note
The Devil’s Advocate turns a legal drama into a Faust story, with a young man trading his soul for success. The supernatural is almost incidental. The real subject is ambition and vanity, and how easily a person talks themselves into terrible choices.
A fantastical premise works best when it’s a vehicle for an ordinary human flaw. The reader may not believe in the Devil, but they recognize vanity.
If your story has a supernatural or high-concept premise, write down the ordinary human weakness it’s really about. Make sure every major scene tests that weakness.
Vanity, Definitely
Yes, if you like your melodrama loud. It’s a 7: an overblown, entertaining Faust story with Al Pacino chewing scenery as the Devil and Charlize Theron giving the film’s best performance. Don’t take it seriously and you’ll have a great time.
Frequently Asked Questions
This film appears on 2 of my film lists