Product Details

• Actors: Keanu Reeves, Al Pacino, Charlize Theron, Jeffrey Jones, Judith Ivey
• Directors: Taylor Hackford
• Writers: Jonathan Lemkin, Tony Gilroy
• Producers: Taylor Hackford, Arnon Milchan, Arnold Kopelson, Anne Kopelson, Michael Tadross
• Format: Blu-ray, Director's Cut, NTSC, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• DVD Release Date: September 18, 2012
• Run Time: 144 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (282 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00860YHRS
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #12,138 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Too old for Hamlet and too young for Lear--what's an ambitious actor to do? Play the Devil, of course. Jack Nicholson did it in The Witches of Eastwick; Robert De Niro did it in Angel Heart (as Louis Cyphre--get it?). In The Devil's Advocate Al Pacino takes his turn as the great Satan, and clearly relishes his chance to raise hell. He's a New York lawyer, of course, by the name of John Milton, who recruits a hotshot young Florida attorney (Keanu Reeves) to his firm and seduces him with tempting offers of power, sex, and money. Think of the story as a twist on John Grisham's The Firm, with the corporate evil made even more explicit. Reeves is wooden, and therefore doesn't seem to have much of a soul to lose, but he's really just our excuse to meet the devil. Pacino's the main attraction, gleefully showing off his--and the Antichrist's--chops at perpetrating menace and mayhem. The film was directed by Taylor Hackford (Against All Odds, Dolores Claiborne). --Jim Emerson

Product Description

Kevin Lomax (Reeves), an ambitious, talented young district attorney, joins a powerful New York law firm headed by the mysterious and charismatic John Milton (Pacino) as Lomax faces the intense seduction of success and money, he is increasingly tempted.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 47 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Keanu's Big Surprise March 12, 2001

By Hespeler

Format:DVD

Here comes a sharp, strong-voiced New York city lawyer with a lot of experience complemented by rare physical and mental powers. Played by Al Pacino, John Milton is a loner who wins cases by ignoring what is and isn't "by the book". While in the process of establishing a law partner, Milton runs across hot shot Keanu Reeves, who is yet to lose. Reeves turns out to become the perfect missing piece to the puzzle for Pacino. His character spends a significant amount of time with his new law partner in business and pleasure circumstances, in order to indirectly let his new friend know him better, to find out who he really is. As time passes, tension between the two businessmen arises and Keanu, the perfect defender/convicter sees his life unfold to become a total nightmare.

"The Devils Advocate" has been compared to "The Firm", but "The Firm" is more drawn out and isn't in with the fantasy or horror genre. Al Pacino really shows his stuff in this, with a more than believable performance that features numerous profound monologues that are always mastered by this Italian legend. His costar, Keanu, hits the target for the first time, bringing genuine emotion and class to the table. Overall, "The Devil's Advocate" is very intriguing, extremely well acted with some impressive special effects. I found this movie to be one of the best of the 90s.

25 of 30 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Morals Reawaken Here! December 8, 2006

By Bradley Headstone

Format:DVD

This movie is actually a shocking wake up call in the moral department. If you follow my reviews, you know that I dislike modern shoot em up movies. But setting this aside, it is interesting how many movies inspire the wrong values. (Shoot everybody up, take down who stands in your way, fall in love, and live happily ever after. I could go on and on, but so many movies fall into this category.) Well, "The Devil's Advocate" seems to be a reaction against the amoral filth that often comes out of the movie theatres. The basic theme of this movie according to its director is: "Do I do the right thing, or do I survive?" The story starts at a courtroom in Florida. Lawyer Kevin Lomax realizes that his client is really guilty, but after a bit of taunting, he gets his client off anyway, and it's not hard to see that satisfying his ego was the main reason he did so. Well, Kevin gets an offer from a law firm in New York City to pick a jury for a client who DID steal millions. Again, Kevin comes through. The leader of this city firm John Milton (Al Pacino) then offers Kevin a job with a tempting salary. So far, this all seems part of the 'American Dream.' (Play some moral games to get to the top if you need to.) Apparently Kevin has gotten there, but the story is FAR from over. Sadly, some vital scenes were deleted for the purpose of time. (One is where Al Pacino says: "Leave morals to God. We have a job to do." Another sadly deleted scene is where Kevin's wife Mary Anne is sent into a room where sexual amoral games are going on.) At the risk of over simplifying a bit, with Al Pacino's well timed appearances, it becomes clear that the more moral games Kevin is willing to play, the further he can go. It is interesting that about half way through the movie, Kevin starts to treat his moral and religious mother with disrespect, and that the marriage between Kevin and Mary Anne starts to have serious problems. An obvious example is when Mary Anne gets a beautiful cut and dye hair job, but Kevin calls it: 'radical' and 'traumatic.' Why? He already has his eyes on other women. (Notably Christa Bella.) Another sadly deleted scene is where it was obvious that if Christa Bella had been present at the dance club, Kevin would have been willing to engage in adultery. The once happy marriage with Mary Anne has become a burden to him. (This is obvious when during a phone call, he lies to her about being at work and starts to get very short with her.) Well, Kevin continues to take the money as well as other things, at the expense of his morals. It is not until he realizes that his new client Alexander, IS guilty of several murders that his conscience starts to wake up. But even if our conscience has awakened, will we listen to it, or will we survive? Kevin realizes that after you have played too many moral games, backing out isn't so easy. And it isn't long before he realizes that Al Pacino is in fact the DEVIL. Perhaps the most frightening moment in this movie is when Kevin tries to blame the devil for everything that happened to him, and the devil can HONESTLY reply: "Wait a minute. Who MADE those decisions?" Another frightening thing about this movie is that we probably all have played moral games in our lives, and this movie confronts us with things we are probably ALL guilty of. Forget the grotesque devils and demons in horror movies who can make you do things. Any priest or nun will say that evil is simply the absence of God. And if the devil did make an appearance, he could very well appear fatherly and likable. And he probably would say things that SOUND good. This movie is proof that in horror, blood and guts are laughable compared to frightening truth that we may wish to avoid.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars I love it more every time I watch it December 24, 2000

By Tim Lieder VINE™ VOICE

Format:VHS Tape

I think I am finally going to have to admit that I like Keanu Reeves. Every movie I see him in, he's Ted. Ted the lawyer, Ted the Christ-figure, Ted the Buddha-figure, Ted the son of Satan, Ted the guy with the wife turning into a vapire, Ted the serial killer. He's just the same dopy guy in every movie and yet that character is really beginning to grow on me and I'm starting to realize that there is a difference between his roles. Maybe a subtle one but it's a difference. And he must be a very nice guy because he keeps ending up in all the great movies and despite how much I might be starting to like him he's still not THAT talented.

This is a movie of pure brilliant evil. Al Pacino would be great for the last 15 minutes alone when he's over the top, blaspheming against G-d, nature and the American Judicial System. But the fact that Pacino lets himself play it down for most of the movie is great. He's polite. He's suave and there's just something a little off about him. He also lets Keanu have most of the movie. Usually if you are on screen with Pacino, forget about being remembered unless you happened to be DeNiro, but in this movie the director and the actor know how to hang back and make Reeves look good.

Basically this movie is a parable about a lawyer without a conscience or at least without one that is going to stand in the way of winning. Due to his success he gets hired by a high-profile law firm with sinister undertones and begins to get a whole new breed of killers off. Oh yeah, the President of the law firm is Satan.

This movie has some beautiful scenes including the final denoument with Satan and Reeves as well as the empty street of New York City that Keanu Reeves walks over to get to his confrontation. Charlize Theron (sic?) is the unraveling moral fiber that undercuts Reeves' flirtation with the dark side. Where he makes choices and loses a little more of his soul, she goes insane and changes her Belinda Carlisle hairdo to the Belinda Carlisle-postcocaine hairdo.

This is an amazing movie. Brilliant and psychotic. Religious enough to please religious folks and blasphemous enough to entertain everyone else. Rent it, buy it and watch it over and over again.

One caveat: the lawyer as devil storyline has been done to death. It's great here but one wonders why the festering resentment against lawyers is so pervasive. Then again that is on of the few professionals besides drug dealer or hitman where people hate the successful practitioners. Oh well, occupational hazard for the neat cars and the big houses.