There are two kinds of workplace horror stories: the time your manager asked you to work a Saturday, and the time your manager turned out to be Satan himself. Taylor Hackford’s The Devil’s Advocate is about the latter, and honestly, I think most of us would still take the Hell option if it came with Al Pacino’s monologues.
The film is a gloriously overwrought legal thriller where morality, lust, and ambition get put on the witness stand. And the verdict? Guilty of being a blast.
Keanu Reeves: The Lawyer Who Literally Can’t Lose
Keanu Reeves plays Kevin Lomax, a slick Florida defense attorney with the kind of perfect hair you only get from Faustian bargains and industrial-grade mousse. Kevin has never lost a case, and when we meet him, he’s busy defending a teacher accused of molesting a child. Kevin knows the guy is guilty, but still bulldozes the poor victim in court with a cross-examination so brutal it should count as a second felony.
This is the film’s central theme: what happens when your ambition is bigger than your morality. Kevin’s obsession with winning makes him the golden boy every slimy law firm dreams of. Which is exactly why a mysterious New York firm comes calling. It’s basically the legal version of a baseball draft—except the Yankees are run by the Prince of Darkness.
Al Pacino: The Devil Who Won’t Stop Chewing the Scenery
Enter John Milton, played by Al Pacino in what can only be described as the loudest quiet performance ever committed to film. This is Pacino at his most operatic, gleefully straddling the line between brilliant and batshit. His Milton is equal parts charming uncle, motivational speaker, and Times Square street preacher with a coke habit.
From the second Milton swaggers on screen, you know exactly who he is—there’s no subtlety here. He’s Satan. The movie doesn’t even try to hide it. They call him John Milton, for God’s sake. The only way it could be more obvious is if he showed up in red pajamas with horns and introduced himself as “Mr. Devil, Esq.”
And yet… you can’t stop watching him. Pacino delivers speeches like he’s trying to sell you both eternal damnation and a timeshare in Boca Raton at the same time. By the time he belts out “Vanity—definitely my favorite sin,” you’ll want to clap even as your soul evaporates.
Charlize Theron: Gaslit Straight Into Hell
While Kevin is off seduced by the glitz of big cases and billable hours, his wife Mary Ann (Charlize Theron) is spiraling into madness. And not the quirky rom-com kind of madness, but the “hallucinating demons while trying on lingerie” kind.
Theron gives the film its emotional backbone. She plays Mary Ann’s descent into horror with a rawness that’s genuinely unsettling. Her infertility, her isolation, her eventual suicide—this isn’t camp, this is gut-punch tragedy. Watching her unravel while Kevin insists on “just one more case” makes you want to slap him with a subpoena for negligence.
It’s a testament to Theron’s performance that she holds her own between Keanu’s earnestness and Pacino’s volcanic lunacy. She’s the one character who doesn’t get lost in the spectacle, even when she’s seeing literal demons in department stores.
A Courtroom Drama Where God and the Devil Are the Jury
One of the joys of The Devil’s Advocate is how shamelessly it smashes genres together. It’s part glossy legal thriller, part supernatural horror, part family melodrama, and part motivational seminar hosted by Beelzebub.
We get trials that feel like high-stakes gladiator matches, with Kevin winning case after case by sheer force of ego. We get Milton whispering temptations like a Wall Street Mephistopheles. And we get scenes where the firm’s skyscraper suddenly feels like the world’s fanciest haunted house, complete with sacrilegious wall sculptures that come to life at just the wrong moment.
The Alex Cullen subplot—where Craig T. Nelson plays a billionaire accused of murdering his family—serves as Kevin’s ultimate moral test. Defend the guilty man, win the case, and rise higher in Milton’s empire. Or walk away and risk losing everything. Spoiler: Kevin does what every ambitious lawyer does—he keeps playing.
The Big Reveal: Daddy Issues Straight From Hell
Eventually, Kevin learns the truth: John Milton isn’t just his boss, he’s also his father. Which makes Christabella (Connie Nielsen), Milton’s other protégé, his half-sister. Milton’s big plan? Get Kevin and Christabella to hook up and spawn the Antichrist. Because nothing says “corporate team-building” like incestuous apocalypse-breeding.
It’s insane, melodramatic, and delivered with such gusto by Pacino that you can’t help but grin. The finale is like a Broadway musical directed by Satan: fiery speeches, incest pitches, and Keanu finally realizing that sometimes the only way to win is not to play.
When Kevin blows his own brains out to thwart the plan, it’s the first time he’s chosen morality over victory. The movie could have ended there, a bleak cautionary tale about ambition and damnation. But no—the devil loves an encore.
The Twist: Satan Is Also a Reporter
Suddenly, we’re back in Florida. Everything that happened was a vision, a cosmic warning about Kevin’s future if he keeps playing defense attorney to child molesters. Kevin decides to throw away the case, sacrificing his undefeated record. Victory for morality!
But then his buddy Larry, a sleazy reporter, offers him fame for his noble stand. Kevin hesitates… and agrees. Cut to Larry transforming into Pacino’s Milton, smirking at the camera with the iconic final line: “Vanity—definitely my favorite sin.”
It’s the perfect kicker. Evil doesn’t need to tempt us with hellfire—it just needs to dangle a little fame and attention, and we’ll sign on the dotted line.
Final Verdict: Guilty of Being Delightfully Over the Top
Is The Devil’s Advocate subtle? Absolutely not. It’s about as nuanced as a law school frat party sponsored by Monster Energy. But it is wildly entertaining.
Keanu Reeves plays the straight man with enough sincerity to ground the insanity. Charlize Theron turns in a performance that deserved more respect than it got. And Al Pacino gives one of cinema’s great over-the-top performances—a demonic Tony Robbins with a volume knob stuck on eleven.
Yes, it’s pulpy, cheesy, and occasionally ridiculous. But it’s also sharp, stylish, and surprisingly thoughtful about ambition, morality, and the little deals we make with ourselves every day.
In a world full of boring legal thrillers, The Devil’s Advocate dares to ask the big questions: what if your boss was Satan, your office perk was eternal damnation, and your coworker was also your half-sister?
Mock Closing Argument
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, The Devil’s Advocate may be guilty of excess, melodrama, and Pacino going full volcano. But I submit to you that those are not crimes—they’re features. And in the court of guilty pleasures, this movie deserves a standing ovation.
