Customer Reviews

The Devil's Advocate

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This is one of those rare occasions where the movie is much better than the book. This novel is a mediocre effort. It might have benefitted from a futher rewrite--or three. It also doesn't seem to have been through the hands of a competent editor. The book's one real contribution is that it gave Taylor Hackford the basis for an excellent movie.

I suppose I should admit that I'm a fan of the genre. Satan, as a cultural archetype, has long fascinated me. Even with all of its flaws, "Omen III" is still one of my favorite movies. Unlike Sam Neil's tongue-in-cheek performance, Neiderman's book in unleavened by humor, intentional or unintentional. The author takes his subject and his book with a stultifying seriousness. A seriousness his slender gifts can't support.

Unfortunately, the book fails to meet the expectations raised by its concept. Its muddled, unfocused plot is one of the problems that Hackford rectifies in his filmed version. Satan as presented in this book seems little more dangerous than Bob Barker--unlike the frenetic performance by Al Pacino. The two characters have only the name in common.

The writing, at times, is surprisingly bad. The dialogue is often stilted and awkward. The Devil is named John Milton in a rather clumsy attempt at a joke. The author never refers to the character as anything but "John Milton" or "Mr. Milton."

The books protagonist, Kevin Taylor, is recruited by Milton's premiere criminal law firm after winning an acquittal from a child-molesting middle school teacher. His staid, Long Island firm's partners, far more comfortable with zoning variances and drafting wills, suggests he look elsewhere to continue his career. Having the Devil's offers already in his back pocket, Taylor leaves the firm and goes to work in Manhattan.

Afraid his wife will be reluctant to leave their cozy Long Island life for the hustle of Manhattan, he soon finds she's even more swept up in the big city's temptations than himself. But, naturally, all does not stay well long. As with so many possibilties, Neiderman fails to use the marriage, as Hackford does, to illustrate the price to be paid for giving into temptation.

Taylor's suspicions are first aroused when he begins having dreams of his wife having sex with another man while he lies next to her. When he awakes, she congratulates him on the great sex they've had--sex Kevin can't remember at all.

In an inexplicable plot twist, Satanus ex Machina, if you will, our protagonist, discovers a computer file filled with cases, two years ahead, of crimes that haven't yet been committed.

From there the book goes from the mediocre--a chauffer named "Charon"--to the implausible--all delivered in pedestrian prose with characters that are essentially interchangeable and uninsteresting.

Instead of the great confrontation and twist at the end Hackford gives us in the movie, Neiderman's book ends up with this razor-sharp, brilliant criminal defense lawyer stumbling through an obvious set-up in an ending pinched, and not cleverly, from the Omen films. He finds himself serving a life sentence, where the prisoners assure him of his safety as long as he helps them draft their appeals. Sent to the prison law-library he finds the prison librarian's eyes to be the same as the ubiquitous John Milton. And the writing isn't THAT interesting.

Finally, there's just little in this novel to hold the reader's attention. In a better writer's hands, the basic idea would have only been scaffolding for the story. Unfortunately, Neiderman presents us only with the scaffolding. He's very fortunate that Taylor Hackford took that scaffolding and fleshed it out to produce a very good movie.

Neiderman seems incapable of seeing the richer possibilities and gives us a second rate novel that lacks of the pacing of Grisham's potboilers. It's just a mess with some "diamonds in the mud." Unlike so many times where a film is unable to capture the fullness of the novel, "The Devil's Advocate" reverses the cliche. There simply isn't any complexity to lose. It's like a the pencil sketch of a painting on the canvas without the paint.

My interest in the classics, such as Faust, Paradise Lost and The Divine Comedy inspired my interest in the movie and book versions of The Devil's Advocate. Though it would not be appropriate to compare the modern story intended as popular entertainment with these literary classics, the subject matter is similar and might interest anyone with an appreciation of these works. I saw the movie first and felt that novel might have something more to offer. I felt that the book lacked much of the drama of the film - two-thirds of it is devoted to the saga of Kevin and Miriam moving from a suburb to downtown New York. I had expected it to deal more with the confrontation of innocence with ultimate evil. This is conveyed more effectively in the movie by the character of Satan as portrayed by Al Pacino. The character of Kevin's wife is drawn much more sympathetically in the film than the book. The ending of the movie is more convincing and powerful than that of the book, which tends to rely on theatrical devices. I thought picking on the legal profession as the Devil's chosen instrument of evil was a bit overdone in the movie; the book suggests that disreputable lawyers represent only one arm of Satan, and that everyone has spores of evil within them waiting for an appropriate opportunity to germinate. A reading of the book may stimulate more ideas than the faster paced movie, but overall the film strengthens some of the themes in the story and makes the characters more compelling. One must credit the author with an imaginative idea that was to some extent refined by the screenwriters. Those with an interest in classical literature are apt to be more critical of the book than the film, but both stimulate the imagination.

After Pacino's gem of a diatribe near the end of the movie, I expected even more from the book. But that part, the invention of a more talented screenplay writer, was missing; and the dialogue and story line were flat. A Keanu Reeves movie beats the book it was based on!

Like so many other reviewers, I am a huge fan of the movie that was based VERY loosely on this book. While the film was well-made and superbly acted (especially by Pacino, who I still think deserves an Academy award), this book is bad even by "super market book rack" standards. It's written on the level of an RL Stine book for kids, only not quite as good. The characters are cardboard, the dialogue laughably bad, and what promises to be a good plot in the beginning degenerates into a ridiculous story line.

At the end of the book I was actually glad to see how the "hero" Kevin Taylor ends up. Far from an astute attorney, he comes across as a dope who deserves the raw deal he got.

Suitable for comic relief or lighting fires, "The Devil's Advocate" has one redeeming virtue: it's so bad it's almost funny! Check it out of the library or pay a nickel at a yard sale for it if you must read it. Then when you're through go relieve your disappointment by watching a good movie, "Devil's Advocate" for instance.

I read the book because I found the movie so enjoyable. The book turned out to be different from the movie which makes it all the more interesting because it is not predictable. Although both the movie and book deliver the same message and reach a pretty similar conclusion, they take different approaches and have different twists. Those expecting the book to be the movie script will be disappointed. To me both the movie and book are stars in their own right. I was so impressed with Andrew Neiderman's imagination, I went on to read his other novels.

I was prompted to buy this book based on the film. I adored the movie. It has become one of my favorites. Imagine my surprise when I opened the book to find not just a bland, slow, tiresome read, but a stylistic atrocity! Neiderman writes like a sixth grader. His use of rhetorical questions and foreshadowing plays to the lowest common denomenator. It boggles the mind that anyone would publish this hack (speaking of which, there are numerous blatant grammatical errors... what the hell was the editor thinking when he allowed this to go to press?) When writing a book about a place where people actually live there is some need to research (Long Island towns don't have small town mentalities, especially in Nassau County). Needless to say, don't waste your money, but definately see the movie. The screen writer deserves an academy award for turning this pedestrian attempt at a novel into such a thought provoking film.

The movie was outstanding. The book just plained ( ).First of all, every thing is different except for the character names,and the location of John Milton's office. I was so dissapointed after reading the novel. Those who have seen the movie, please don't read this. The climax, which was terrible, happened in the last 3 pages. The majority of the novel was drawn out and boring. The exciting scenes were described in a paragraph. All the cool scenes that happened in the movie never existed in the novel, and new ones were added that made it just plain dull. Stay far away from this book as possible. See the movie first, then forget that a book was ever made. Trust me. END

Unfortunately, the book has none of the style, wit, or raw seductive power of the movie. To be fair, it's probably a mistake to compare the two, as the storylines differ in vitually every way. Those who like myself, bought the book because they enjoyed the movie, will probably be dissapointed by this. On it's own, however, the book still cannot stand on its own merits. It's a prime example of supermarket fiction: one-dimensional characters, silly dialogue, and ridiculous plot. It thoroughly lacks believability, and at times appears to be a blatant rip-off of an earlier bestseller written by a certain ex-lawyer from Mississippi. All-in-all, it's definately a book for the undemanding.

THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE is a modernized version of Paradise Lost or Faust or countless other tales where the devil incarnate wreaks his particular brand of hellish doom.

Our hero, Kevin Taylor, starts out defending a teacher accused of sexual abuse of one of her students. A strange man named John Milton is at this trial and watches with pleasure as Kevin gets the defendant off, even though he knows she is probably guilty. This Milton person offers Kevin a position at his high-powered firm in Manhattan, and after his own law firm chastises him for taking on such a high profile case, Kevin tells them to stick it and off he and his wife Miriam go to Manhattan. This firm has lawyers who never lose a case; Milton puts them up rent free in his own apartment complex; he gives them gifts; he seems to know everything about them, and kaboom Miriam and the other Stepford wive wannabes get along so well, it's almost frightening. Then when Kevin starts having nightmares about sexual encounters with his wife which he can't remember in the morning, he knows something is amiss.

We all know it because we bought the book and read the preview information, so to speak.

Neiderman keeps us interested as Kevin realizes there is more to life than power and fame. Predictable at times, and surprising at others, the tale weaves its way to a rather depressing ending, but does Kevin deserve anything better?

Well written and spooky.

I enjoy fictional representations of Satan and really appreciated Devil's Advocate so I was very excited to get a chance to read the book upon which the movie was based. I found Neiderman's book so engrossing that I devoured it in a fraction of the time it normally takes for me to read a book of this length.

In the beginning of the story there were a few differences but overall, I felt that I was reading the same story I had seen in the movie. The further I got into the book, however, the more the plot and characters diverged from the story presented in the movie version of Devil's Advocate.

Overall, this was an enjoyable book to read. I wouldn't consider it classic literature, but it was very entertaining. I'm still not certain I care for the ending of the book -- I prefer the ending of the movie more -- and there were moments when the author dropped information at the reader that I think would have been better had it appeared earlier in the book. Towards the end, some events began to take on a Deus ex Machina feel.

Regardless of the book's flaws, I would still highly recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the movie version of Devil's Advocate as well as anyone who hasn't seen the movie but enjoys horror/suspense stories about insidious evil.