Based on a novel by Andrew Neiderman, The Devil’s Advocate came out in 1997 with a sterling cast (Keanu Reeves, Al Pacino, Charlize Theron) and an ingenious premise: what if the Devil was operating on Earth as a high-powered lawyer? A slyly subversive, intelligent mash-up of The Firm and Faust with a heaping of Paradise Lost on top, The Devil’s Advocate — now with a new, long-overdue 4K upgrade from Shout Factory — was a glossy cinematic freakshow that dressed up sleazy horror hijinks in a flashy, expensive suit.
Reeves stars as Kevin Lomax, a Florida defense attorney. His ruthless, winning ways attract the attention of a New York City law firm run by the charismatic yet morally questionable John Milton (Pacino), whose outfit represents clients of dubious character. Kevin and his wife Mary Ann (Theron) move to a posh Manhattan apartment, but as Mary Ann struggles to acclimate and Kevin spends more and more time at the firm, a series of strange, terrifying occurrences lead Kevin to realize who Milton really is — and what he wants.
How Was The Devil’s Advocate Received Upon Release?
With a critics’ score of 65% and an audience rating of 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, The Devil’s Advocate fared decently upon release, becoming a consistent viewer favorite over the years. Reviews at the time suggested that its 143-minute runtime was a little long, but critics were dialed in with the movie’s craftsmanship, premise, and Pacino’s flamboyant performance.
“You go in expecting a brazenly hokey, in-your-face portrait of evil, and that, I’m happy to say, is just what you get,” said Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly, while Variety’s Todd McCarthy opined that the film “bubbles over with a nearly operatic sense of absurdity and excess.” Most reviews seemed to land in the same general area, with critics either appreciating the movie’s unapologetic tone or denigrating it as a shallow bag of tricks.
Charlize Theron joins the long list of legal thriller wives who have a bad time.
Warner Bros.Why Is It Important to Watch The Devil’s Advocate Now?
With the horror genre not doing much to distinguish itself during the mid-1990s, The Devil’s Advocate was an exception. A decently-budgeted, star-driven, high-concept thriller designed to attract adult audiences with plentiful gore, nudity, and eroticism (this is very much an R-rated effort), the movie sits between the more lurid, low-budget kind of horror exemplified by slasher films and zombie gut-munchers and classier, tonier genre fare like Rosemary’s Baby or The Omen.
With director Taylor Hackford (Dolores Claiborne) showing a firm command of the film’s shifting tones, which combine legal melodramatics and dark satire with horror pyrotechnics, The Devil’s Advocate might even be a precursor of the “elevated horror” trend that came of age in the 2010s and 2020s. There’s even a bit of generational trauma thrown into the stew, as Kevin discovers that his connection with Milton is more familial than he knew.
It’s the film’s sly combination of trashy scares and social critique that makes The Devil’s Advocate so memorable. Mary Ann finds herself increasingly uncomfortable with the materialistic wives of the firm’s top lawyers, while Kevin breaches the law to defend one of the firm’s top clients, a Trump-like NYC real estate developer accused of murdering his wife and child (incidentally, Trump’s real-life, gold-plated apartment in midtown Manhattan played the developer’s pad). All of this, combined with Milton’s magnetic amorality and the increasingly horrific visions that plague Mary Ann and Kevin, creates the sense that the legal profession is indeed Satan’s best venue to manipulate humanity.
Reeves gives one of his more underrated performances, while Theron is heartbreaking. But Pacino dominates the film. Coming at a time when he was alternating between more subtle work in films like Donnie Brasco and outsized bombast in Scent of a Woman, Pacino goes for the latter here, chewing up all the scenery in sight but giving us one of the best Satans in film history. His closing speech to Kevin about God’s rules (“Look, but don’t touch… touch, but don’t taste!”) is one for the ages.
Pacino, seen here in one of his more restrained moments.
Warner Bros.What New Features Does The Devil’s Advocate 4K Blu-ray Have?
Aside from what’s certain to be a striking upgrade of the film’s already richly textured compositions from the original camera negative, the new 4K UHD release of The Devil’s Advocate from Shout Factory doesn’t contain any new features. It does, however, retain a previously issued selection of deleted and extended scenes, and commentary from Taylor Hackford.
Also not included in the new 4K version is the original bas-relief sculpture of souls captured in stone that was seen behind John Milton’s desk in the film’s original theatrical run and first home video release. After Warner Bros. was sued for copyright infringement by the Episcopal National Cathedral in Washington D.C. and sculptor Frederick Hart — who claimed that the sculpture was essentially a ripoff of Hart’s “Ex Nihilo,” which resides in the Cathedral — all copies of the film, following a brief initial run of 475,000 DVDs and VHS tapes, had the sculpture replaced via CGI with a more ambiguous image, until the figures within it start moving at the film’s climax.
If you have a copy from that first pressing, hang onto it, because it’s a true rarity. In the meantime, a definitive collector’s edition of The Devil’s Advocate remains out of reach, but that shouldn’t stop you from giving this Satanic gem another day in court.
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