October 28, 1997 -- "Devil's Advocate" is one of those films that look good as a trailer, but the house of cards soon falls flat when the idea has to be sustained for 90 minutes. It would make a pretty good 5-minute comedy sketch, however.

The casting of Al Pacino as the devilish head of a New York City law firm is about the only thing that went right about this film. Pacino has great fun chewing up the scenery as the Prince of Darkness, aka John Milton (one of many references to Paradise Lost).

Keanu Reeves plays the protagonist, Kevin Lomax, a country lawyer who has never lost a case while his wife, Mary Ann, is played by Charlize Theron ("That Thing You Do!" "2 Days in the Valley") and Reeves' Bible-toting mother is played by Judith Ivey. Lomax is invited to New York to join the law firm, but he eventually realizes that Milton is after much more than his legal talent.

Pacino is good in the climactic scene in which he explains he really likes people better than his opponent, God, because he just wants them to fully develop their talent, for evil, of course. It is a heartfelt speech by Pacino, but in the end, rather empty of meaning.

The end of the film is disappointing, because a rather weak ending is grafted to the first ending of the film. It is quite a copout. Maybe the filmmakers couldn't decide how to end it, so they just added another, entirely superfluous, ending. This film is also not for kids. It has violence, profanity, sexually-explicit scenes and full-frontal nudity. Maybe the devil made them do it. This film rates a D.

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