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The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

October 19, 2023

The Devil's Advocate (marketed as Devil's Advocate) is a 1997 American supernatural horror film directed by Taylor Hackford, written by Jonathan Lemkin and Tony Gilroy, and starring Keanu Reeves, Al Pacino, and Charlize Theron. Based on Andrew Neiderman's 1990 novel of the same name, it is about a gifted young Florida lawyer (Reeves) invited to New York City to work for a major firm. As his wife (Theron) becomes haunted by frightening visions, the lawyer slowly begins to realize the owner of the firm (Pacino) is not what he appears to be, and is in fact the Devil.

The Devil's Advocate
Theatrical release poster
Directed byTaylor Hackford
Screenplay by
Based onThe Devil's Advocate
by Andrew Neiderman
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyAndrzej Bartkowiak
Edited byMark Warner
Music byJames Newton Howard
Production
companies
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
  • October 17, 1997 (1997-10-17) (United States)
Running time
144 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$57 million[2]
Box office$153 million[2]

Pacino's character, Satan, takes the guise of a human lawyer named after the author of Paradise Lost, John Milton. The story and direction contain allusions to Milton's epic, Dante Alighieri's Inferno, and the legend of Faust. An adaptation of Neiderman's novel went into a development hell during the 1990s, with Hackford gaining control of the production. Filming took place around New York City and Florida.

The Devil's Advocate received mixed reviews, with critics crediting it for entertainment value and Pacino's performance. It grossed over $153 million in the box office and won the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film. It also became the subject of the copyright lawsuit Hart v. Warner Bros., Inc. for its visual art.

Plot Edit

Kevin Lomax is a Gainesville, Florida defense attorney who has never lost a case. While defending schoolteacher Lloyd Gettys against a charge of child molestation, he realizes his client is guilty. Despite this, Kevin destroys the victim's credibility through a harsh cross examination, securing a "not guilty" verdict.

A New York City law firm asks Kevin to assist a jury selection. After the jury delivers a not guilty verdict, the head of the firm, John Milton, offers Kevin a high-paying job. Kevin accepts, and he and his wife Mary Ann move to Manhattan. He is soon spending most of his time at work, leaving Mary Ann feeling isolated. Kevin's fundamentalist mother Alice, whose only time having sex in her life resulted in Kevin's birth, suggests they both return home after an unsettling conversation with Milton, but Kevin refuses.

When billionaire Alex Cullen is accused of murdering his wife, his stepson, and a maid, Milton assigns the case to Kevin. This demands more of Kevin's time, further separating him from Mary Ann, and he begins to fantasize about his co-worker, Christabella. Mary Ann begins seeing visions of the partners' wives becoming demonic, and has a nightmare about a baby playing with her removed ovaries. After a doctor declares her infertile, she begs Kevin to return them to Gainesville, but he refuses. Milton suggests Kevin step down from the trial to tend to Mary Ann, but Kevin says that he fears he will resent her for costing him the case.

Eddie Barzoon, the firm's managing partner, is convinced that Kevin is competing for his job after discovering Kevin's name on the firm's charter and threatens to inform the United States Attorney's office of the firm's activities. Kevin tells Milton about Eddie's threats, but Milton seems to dismiss them; during the conversation, Eddie is beaten to death in Central Park by vagrants with demonic appearances.

While preparing Melissa Black, Alex Cullen's secretary, to testify about the latter's alibi, Kevin realizes she is lying and tells Milton he believes Alex is guilty. Milton offers to back him regardless and Kevin proceeds, winning an acquittal with Melissa's perjured testimony. Afterwards, Kevin finds Mary Ann covered with a blanket in a nearby church. She claims Milton raped her that day, but Kevin insists Milton was with him in court. Mary Ann drops her blanket, revealing her body covered with cuts and scratches. Assuming she injured herself, Kevin commits her to a mental institution. U.S. Justice Department agent Mitch Weaver warns Kevin that Milton is corrupt and reveals that Gettys has been arrested for killing a little girl. Moments later, Weaver is struck by a car and killed. At the same time, during Eddie's funeral service, Milton, who is in the church, sticks his finger into holy water, which makes it boil.

Alice, Kevin, and Pam Garrety, his case manager, visit Mary Ann at the institution. After seeing Pam as a demon, Mary Ann hits her, barricades the room, and commits suicide. Alice reveals that Milton is Kevin's father, whom she met in New York decades earlier. Kevin leaves the hospital to confront Milton, who admits to raping Mary Ann. Kevin shoots Milton, but the bullets do not harm him. Milton reveals himself as Satan; Kevin blames him for everything that happened, but Milton counters that he merely "set the stage", and that Kevin chose to neglect Mary Ann and defend the guilty. Kevin realizes he always wanted to win, no matter the cost. Christabella appears, and Milton announces that he wants Kevin and Christabella – Kevin's half-sister – to conceive the Antichrist. Kevin initially appears to acquiesce, but then abruptly shoots himself in the head. Milton's Satanic rage burns Christabella alive, initially revealing his demonic form before turning into a winged angel who resembles Kevin.

Suddenly, Kevin finds himself back at the recess of the Gettys trial, the entire experience having been a vision of the future. He returns to the courtroom and finds Mary Ann alive and well. Once the trial resumes, Kevin, now aware of what will happen should he cross examine the victim, announces that he cannot represent his client despite the threat of disbarment. Kevin's reporter friend Larry offers him a high-profile interview, promising to make him famous. Encouraged by Mary Ann, Kevin agrees. After they leave, Larry transforms into Milton, who breaks the fourth wall and declares, "Vanity—definitely my favorite sin."

Cast Edit

 
 
Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron star.

Themes and interpretations Edit

 
Themes evoke John Milton's Paradise Lost and its rebel angels, previously depicted by artist William Blake.
 
Faust's Deal with the Devil bears similarities to the film's themes.
 
Gustave Doré's portrayal of Dante's Satan in his icy abode.

The Devil character's name is a direct homage to John Milton, who wrote Paradise Lost,[6] quoted by Lomax with the line "Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n".[7] Despite this, the thrust of Milton's epic was to rebuke the devil.[8] As a rebel against God, complaining of being perpetually "underestimated", the Milton character, like Paradise Lost's Satan, is "Heav'n running from Heav'n" with a "sense of injur'd merit".[9]

Professor Eric C. Brown judges the climax, in which Milton attempts to persuade Lomax to have sex with his half-sister to conceive the Antichrist, to be the most "Miltonic", as the sculptures become animated in carnal activities evoking Paradise Lost's "Downfall of the Rebel Angels".[7] The tirade Milton gives in this sequence is at times also reminiscent of Satan's lines in Paradise Lost Books I and II.[10] In U.S. literary education, Milton's temptation of Lomax in the climax, in which he rationalizes rebellion against God for a "Look, but don't touch" model, has been compared to Satan urging Eve to eat forbidden fruit in Paradise Lost, Book IX, lines 720–730:[11]

If they all things, who enclos'd Knowledge of good and evil in this tree, That whoso eats thereof forthwith attains Wisdom without their leave? and wherein lies Th' offence, that Man should thus attain to know?

In his DVD commentary, Taylor Hackford did not name Paradise Lost as an inspiration, instead citing the legend of Faust.[12] An underlying concept of the story is a "Faustian bargain", offered to a character with free will.[13] Philosopher Peter van Inwagen writes Milton referring to free will as a "bitch", when Lomax contemplates selling his soul, moves away from a legalistic definition of "free will" as "uncoerced", into the philosophical realm of its definition.[14]

As with Goethe's Faust, the Devil commonly depicted in cinema is associated with lust and temptation.[15] Milton shows Lomax many seductive women, in order to induce his "fall". Sex or rape is usually also the means by which Satan creates the Antichrist, as in Roman Polanski's 1968 film Rosemary's Baby. In The Devil's Advocate, someone other than Satan will have sex to conceive the Antichrist, though Milton nevertheless brutally rapes Mary Ann.[15] Incest becomes a way of creating the Antichrist, since the offspring of Satan's son and daughter will inherit much of Satan's genetic makeup.[6]

Dante Alighieri's Inferno raised "visual potential" that informed the film.[16] Dantean scholar Amilcare A. Iannucci argues the plot follows the Divine Comedy model in beginning with selva oscura, in Lomax losing his conscience defending a guilty man, and then entering and exploring deeper circles of Hell.[17] Iannucci compares the office building structure to the circles, listing fireplaces where flames are always present; demonic visual phenomena; and water outside Milton's office, analogized to Dante's Satan's icy home, albeit situated at the top of Hell as opposed to the bottom.[18] Free will is also a major theme in the Divine Comedy, with the film's musings on the concept being similar to Dante's Purgatorio, 16.82–83 ("if the present world has gone astray, in you is the cause, in you it's to be sought").[19]

Other religious references are present. In describing New York City as Babylon, Alice Lomax invokes Revelation 18:[20]

Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird!

Milton tempting Lomax is possibly also inspired by the Biblical Temptation of Christ.[6] Aside from Milton, other character names have been commented on: Author Kelly J. Wyman matches Mary Ann, the virginal figure who falls victim to Milton, to the Virgin Mary, and adds the literal translation of Christabella is "Beautiful Christ",[21] and that the title refers to the Catholic Church's Devil's advocates and lawyers as advocates;[22] Eric C. Brown finds Barzoon's name and character to be reminiscent of the demon prince Beelzebub.[7] Scholars Miguel A. De La Torre and Albert Hernández observe the vision of Satan as CEO, wearing expensive clothing and engaging in business, had appeared in popular culture before, including the 1942 novel The Screwtape Letters.[23]

Production Edit

Development Edit

 
Eugène Delacroix's depiction of Milton dictating Paradise Lost; Milton's line "Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n" is used in the screenplay.

Andrew Neiderman wrote The Devil's Advocate as a novel, and it was published in 1990 by Simon and Schuster.[24] Believing his story could be adapted into a film, Neiderman approached Warner Bros. and claimed to have led his successful sale with the synopsis "It's about a law firm in New York that represents only guilty people, and never loses".[25]

Various screenplay adaptations of The Devil's Advocate had been pitched to U.S. cinema studios, with Joel Schumacher planned to direct it with Brad Pitt as the young lawyer.[26] Schumacher planned a sequence in which Pitt would descend into the New York subway system, which would be modeled on the circles of hell in Dante's Divine Comedy.[27] With no actor to play Satan, this project collapsed.[26]

The O.J. Simpson murder trial and its controversial outcome gave new impetus to relaunching the project, with a $60 million budget.[26] Warner hired Taylor Hackford to direct the new attempt.[27] The director embraced the legal drama aspect, theorizing, "The courtroom has become the gladiator arena of the late twentieth century. Following the progress of a sensational trial is a spectator sport".[28]

Tony Gilroy led much of the rewrite, with supervision by Hackford, who envisioned it as "a modern-day morality play" and "Faustian tale".[29] As the screenplay developed, free will became a theme, in which Milton does not actually cause events. Hackford wanted suggestions that Milton does not kill Barzoon, as he defied his muggers, or United States Attorney Weaver, who arrogantly did not watch for vehicles before stepping onto the road.[30]

The screenwriters added the plot element that Lomax was Milton's son, and that Milton could produce the Antichrist, neither of which are in the novel.[31] Hackford cited the films Rosemary's Baby and The Omen as influences, and both had explored the Antichrist mythology.[12][31] Another change from the novel was converting the book's lesbian client to the pedophile Lloyd Gettys, avoiding undertones of homophobia.[32] In an early version of the screenplay, the "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" quotation is given to Milton rather than Lomax.[8]

Casting Edit

Al Pacino had previously been offered the Devil role in attempts at adapting Neiderman's novel, but before final rewrites, rejected it on three occasions,[29] for the clichéd nature of the character.[26] Pacino suggested Robert Redford and Sean Connery for the role.[33] Keanu Reeves chose to star in Devil's Advocate over Speed 2, despite a promised $11 million for the sequel to his 1994 hit Speed;[29] according to Reeves' staff, the actor was averse to performing in two consecutive action films after Chain Reaction (1996).[34] On Devil's Advocate, Reeves agreed to a pay cut worth millions of dollars so that the producers could meet Pacino's salary demands.[35] To prepare for the role, Pacino watched the 1941 film The Devil and Daniel Webster and observed tips from Walter Huston as Mr. Scratch. He also read Dante's Inferno and Paradise Lost.[26]

Connie Nielsen, a Danish actress, was selected by Hackford for Christabella, who speaks several languages, with Hackford saying Nielsen already spoke multiple languages.[30] Craig T. Nelson, known for his television work, was cast against type in a villainous role.[30]

Filming Edit

 
 
 
Filming took place at New York's 57th Street, Central Presbyterian Church and Church of the Heavenly Rest.

Principal photography began in New York in 1996, but struggled by November. Delays were caused by the dismissals of the original cinematographer and assistant directors, while an anonymous source claimed Pacino found Hackford to be conceited and loud.[27] An executive alleged Pacino was typically late to work, though producer Arnold Kopelson said this was not the case.[27] Hackford later said Pacino was professional, even though his status meant he did not need to be.[36]

Production designer Bruno Rubeo was tasked to create Milton's apartment, aiming for a "very loose and very sexy" appearance, "so you can't really tell where it goes".[37] Hackford said on this set, he encouraged Reeves and Pacino to "feel the room" and develop some improvisation.[38] Pacino came up with the idea of dancing to "It Happened in Monterey" by Frank Sinatra, and Hackford immediately adopted the idea.[36]

When Lomax leaves to meet Milton, he walks through 57th Street in New York, which is abnormally devoid of people or vehicles. It was shot at the actual 57th Street, with the filmmakers having it emptied at 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday.[30] The offices were shot at the Continental Club in Manhattan, and the Continental Plaza, though the water outside Milton's office was added later by computer effects.[37] In constructing the firm sets, Hackford and Rubeo consulted one architect from Japan and one from Italy to craft an "ultra-modern" look, to display Milton's taste.[30] Donald Trump's penthouse in Trump Tower, Fifth Avenue was lent to the production for Alexander Cullen's residence.[37][39]

A number of churches and courts hosted production. The interior of New York City's Church of the Heavenly Rest was used for the scene where Theron's character says Milton raped her.[29][39] The outside of Central Presbyterian Church was photographed for Barzoon's funeral, while Pacino was inside the Manhattan Church of the Most Holy Redeemer for the holy water sequence.[39] For court scenes, New Jersey's Bergen County Court House was employed for production,[40] as were historic courthouses in New York.[41]

After the completion of the New York shoot in March 1997, production moved to Florida in July 1997.[42] In Jacksonville, Florida, the interior of the Mrs. Howard's business in Riverside and Avondale was used for New York scenes. Its co-owner Jim Howard remodeled the store and appeared as an extra.[42] The Gainesville church scenes were shot at an actual Gainesville church, after Hackford persuaded the pastor and his members to participate, and that his story was about combating Satan.[30]

Theron had to briefly leave the United States while filming, because she was working illegally.[43]

Post-production Edit

At the end of the film, John Milton morphs into Lucifer as a fallen angel. The crew created the effect by combining life masks depicting Reeves, Pacino in 1997 and Pacino as he appeared in the 1972 film The Godfather.[44] The Godfather make-up artist Dick Smith supplied the life mask he made in the 1970s to Devil's Advocate artist Rick Baker, Smith's former protégé.[45] Additionally, Baker created images for demonic faces seen on real actresses and actors, with hands also appearing to move underneath Tamara Tunie's skin, a digital creation with the contributions of Richard Greenberg and Stephanie Powell.[30]

Shots of ballerinas moving in water were used as a basis for Milton's animated sculpture.[30] Special effects producer Edward L. Williams said he filmed the people for the statue effect, and that they were naked and placed in a tank next to a blue screen.[46] It took three months to film the people and then add the computer effects, at a cost of $2 million, or 40% of the overall budget for special effects.[46]

James Newton Howard, a past collaborator with Hackford, was tasked to write the score.[47] Hackford dubbed over Pacino's performance of "It Happened in Monterey" with Sinatra's voice.[38] "Paint It Black" by The Rolling Stones is also used for the film's conclusion.[48]

Release Edit

During early stages of photography, Warner aspired to a release in August 1997.[27] The film eventually had its release on October 17, 1997,[26] on the same day as another horror film, I Know What You Did Last Summer.[49] To promote the release, Warner's website included the warning on hell's gate from Dante's Inferno Canto III ("Abandon every hope, ye who enter here"), with credits presented as circles of hell.[9] The television advertising and poster were upfront as to Milton being Satan, though this is not explicitly revealed in the film itself until its later acts.[50]

Around 475,000 copies of the VHS and DVD were produced by February 1998, but their release into the home video market was delayed pending the Hart v. Warner Bros., Inc. lawsuit.[51] The film afterwards went into regular airings on TNT and TBS.[52] A Blu-ray edition was released in Region A in 2012, as an "Unrated Director's Cut" in which the art in the climax previously subject to the lawsuit is digitally redone.[53]

Reception Edit

Box office Edit

On its opening weekend in October 1997, The Devil's Advocate earned $12.2 million, finishing second in the U.S. box office to I Know What You Did Last Summer, which made $16.1 million.[54] The Devil's Advocate was largely competing against thriller films aimed at youth in the Halloween season.[54] By December 6, 1997, it grossed $56.1 million.[55] It ended its run on February 12, 1998, with a gross of $61 million in North America and $92 million elsewhere.[56]

Critical response Edit

 
 
Al Pacino received positive reviews for his performance as Satan under the guise of John Milton. The character was named after the author of Paradise Lost.

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes assigned the film an approval rating of 64% based on 59 reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The site's critics consensus states: "Though it is ultimately somewhat undone by its own lofty ambitions, The Devil's Advocate is a mostly effective blend of supernatural thrills and character exploration."[57] Metacritic gives the film a weighted average score of 60 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[58] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[59]

Roger Ebert wrote, "The movie never fully engaged me; my mind raced ahead of the plot, and the John Grisham stuff clashed with the Exorcist stuff".[50] In The New York Times, Janet Maslin complimented the "gratifyingly light touch" of using John Milton's name, and special effects with "gimmicks well tethered to reality".[60] David Denby wrote in New York that Devil's Advocate was "preposterously entertaining" and predicted it would get viewers debating.[61] Entertainment Weekly gave it a B, with Owen Gleiberman declaring it "at once silly, overwrought, and almost embarrassingly entertaining", and crediting Pacino for his performance.[62] Gleiberman later declared that Pacino had won the magazine's yearly award for Best Overacting.[63] Variety's Todd McCarthy declared it "fairly entertaining", displaying "a nearly operatic sense of absurdity and excess".[3] Dave Kehr of New York Daily News also preferred Pacino over Reeves, assessing The Devil's Advocate as Faust moved to Manhattan, though disappointed that a "witty undercurrent becomes an exaggerated moralism".[64] Critic James Berardinelli wrote that it "is a highly enjoyable motion picture that's part character study, part supernatural thriller, and part morality play".[65]

In The New York Times Magazine, Michiko Kakutani objected to trivializing Satan, reducing Paradise Lost's vision of the War in Heaven to "an extended lawyer joke".[66] The Christian Science Monitor's David Sterritt found it an unsurprising cinematic re-imagining of Faust with Satan a lawyer, but he recognized its message of "the need for personal responsibility", albeit with "more lascivious sex and shocking violence than a traditional 'Faust' rendition".[67]

The film won the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film.[68] Pacino was also nominated for the MTV Movie Award for Best Villain.[69]

In 2014, Yahoo! named The Devil's Advocate as "Pacino's Most Underrated Film", claiming "Pacino's hammy devil never got his due" but "there's something to be said for an actor who can pull off this level of theatrics".[70] In his 2015 Movie Guide, Leonard Maltin gave it three stars, finding Reeves credible and Pacino "delicious".[71] Scott Mendelson wrote in Forbes in 2015 that "I love this trashy, vulgar, unapologetically puritan melodrama more than I care to admit".[49] In 2016, The Huffington Post reported on an online debate over the possible symbolism in the costume design, as Lomax appears in suits that are light in the beginning, becoming increasingly darker as his morality slips away. The counterpoint is that this merely reflects his increasing social status.[72]

Legacy Edit

Lawsuit Edit

The film was the subject of legal action in Hart v. Warner Bros., Inc. in 1997. The claim was that the sculpture featuring human forms in John Milton's apartment closely resembled the Ex nihilo sculpture by Frederick Hart on the facade of the Episcopal National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., and that a scene involving the sculpture infringed Hart's rights under copyright law in the United States.[73] Hart and the National Cathedral jointly initiated the action, with an argument similar to architect Lebbeus Woods's successful lawsuit over imagery in the film 12 Monkeys.[55] Defenses available to Warner were that the effect was designed without knowledge of Ex nihilo, or fair use.[55]

After a federal judge ruled that the film's video release would be delayed until the case went to trial unless a settlement was reached, Warner Bros. agreed to edit the scene for future releases and to attach stickers to unedited videotapes to indicate there was no relation between the art in the film and Hart's work.[74] The settlement in February 1998 meant 475,000 copies of the VHS and DVD could go into rental stores and businesses.[51]

Adaptations Edit

In 2014, Andrew Neiderman wrote a prequel novel, Judgment Day, about John Milton arriving in New York City and obtaining control of a major law firm. Neiderman brought the book to Warner Bros. for a television series adaptation.[75] John Wells and Arnold Kopelson unsuccessfully attempted to adapt Devil's Advocate into a series in 2014.[76] Produced by Warner Bros. Television,[77] Wells and Kopelson took the project to NBC for a television pilot written by Matt Venne.[76]

A musical play based on The Devil's Advocate is[as of?] in development[citation needed]. Julian Woolford also launched a stage adaptation Advocaat van de Duivel in the Netherlands, in 2015.[78]

References Edit

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Bibliography Edit

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  • Netzley, Ryan (2006). "'Better To Reign in Hell Than Serve in Heaven, Is That It?': Ethics, Apocalypticism, and Allusion in The Devil's Advocate". In L. Knoppers; G. Colón Semenza; Gregory M. Colón Semenza (eds.). Milton in Popular Culture. Springer. ISBN 1-40398318-6.
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External links Edit

 
Wikiquote has quotations related to The Devil's Advocate.

October 19, 2023
devil, advocate, 1997, film, devil, advocate, marketed, devil, advocate, 1997, american, supernatural, horror, film, directed, taylor, hackford, written, jonathan, lemkin, tony, gilroy, starring, keanu, reeves, pacino, charlize, theron, based, andrew, neiderma. The Devil s Advocate marketed as Devil s Advocate is a 1997 American supernatural horror film directed by Taylor Hackford written by Jonathan Lemkin and Tony Gilroy and starring Keanu Reeves Al Pacino and Charlize Theron Based on Andrew Neiderman s 1990 novel of the same name it is about a gifted young Florida lawyer Reeves invited to New York City to work for a major firm As his wife Theron becomes haunted by frightening visions the lawyer slowly begins to realize the owner of the firm Pacino is not what he appears to be and is in fact the Devil The Devil s AdvocateTheatrical release posterDirected byTaylor HackfordScreenplay byJonathan Lemkin Tony GilroyBased onThe Devil s Advocateby Andrew NeidermanProduced byArnon Milchan Arnold Kopelson Anne KopelsonStarringKeanu Reeves Al Pacino Charlize Theron Jeffrey Jones Judith Ivey Craig T NelsonCinematographyAndrzej BartkowiakEdited byMark WarnerMusic byJames Newton HowardProductioncompaniesRegency EnterprisesKopelson EntertainmentDistributed byWarner Bros Release dateOctober 17 1997 1997 10 17 United States Running time144 minutes 1 CountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishBudget 57 million 2 Box office 153 million 2 Pacino s character Satan takes the guise of a human lawyer named after the author of Paradise Lost John Milton The story and direction contain allusions to Milton s epic Dante Alighieri s Inferno and the legend of Faust An adaptation of Neiderman s novel went into a development hell during the 1990s with Hackford gaining control of the production Filming took place around New York City and Florida The Devil s Advocate received mixed reviews with critics crediting it for entertainment value and Pacino s performance It grossed over 153 million in the box office and won the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film It also became the subject of the copyright lawsuit Hart v Warner Bros Inc for its visual art Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Themes and interpretations 4 Production 4 1 Development 4 2 Casting 4 3 Filming 4 4 Post production 5 Release 6 Reception 6 1 Box office 6 2 Critical response 7 Legacy 7 1 Lawsuit 7 2 Adaptations 8 References 8 1 Bibliography 9 External linksPlot EditKevin Lomax is a Gainesville Florida defense attorney who has never lost a case While defending schoolteacher Lloyd Gettys against a charge of child molestation he realizes his client is guilty Despite this Kevin destroys the victim s credibility through a harsh cross examination securing a not guilty verdict A New York City law firm asks Kevin to assist a jury selection After the jury delivers a not guilty verdict the head of the firm John Milton offers Kevin a high paying job Kevin accepts and he and his wife Mary Ann move to Manhattan He is soon spending most of his time at work leaving Mary Ann feeling isolated Kevin s fundamentalist mother Alice whose only time having sex in her life resulted in Kevin s birth suggests they both return home after an unsettling conversation with Milton but Kevin refuses When billionaire Alex Cullen is accused of murdering his wife his stepson and a maid Milton assigns the case to Kevin This demands more of Kevin s time further separating him from Mary Ann and he begins to fantasize about his co worker Christabella Mary Ann begins seeing visions of the partners wives becoming demonic and has a nightmare about a baby playing with her removed ovaries After a doctor declares her infertile she begs Kevin to return them to Gainesville but he refuses Milton suggests Kevin step down from the trial to tend to Mary Ann but Kevin says that he fears he will resent her for costing him the case Eddie Barzoon the firm s managing partner is convinced that Kevin is competing for his job after discovering Kevin s name on the firm s charter and threatens to inform the United States Attorney s office of the firm s activities Kevin tells Milton about Eddie s threats but Milton seems to dismiss them during the conversation Eddie is beaten to death in Central Park by vagrants with demonic appearances While preparing Melissa Black Alex Cullen s secretary to testify about the latter s alibi Kevin realizes she is lying and tells Milton he believes Alex is guilty Milton offers to back him regardless and Kevin proceeds winning an acquittal with Melissa s perjured testimony Afterwards Kevin finds Mary Ann covered with a blanket in a nearby church She claims Milton raped her that day but Kevin insists Milton was with him in court Mary Ann drops her blanket revealing her body covered with cuts and scratches Assuming she injured herself Kevin commits her to a mental institution U S Justice Department agent Mitch Weaver warns Kevin that Milton is corrupt and reveals that Gettys has been arrested for killing a little girl Moments later Weaver is struck by a car and killed At the same time during Eddie s funeral service Milton who is in the church sticks his finger into holy water which makes it boil Alice Kevin and Pam Garrety his case manager visit Mary Ann at the institution After seeing Pam as a demon Mary Ann hits her barricades the room and commits suicide Alice reveals that Milton is Kevin s father whom she met in New York decades earlier Kevin leaves the hospital to confront Milton who admits to raping Mary Ann Kevin shoots Milton but the bullets do not harm him Milton reveals himself as Satan Kevin blames him for everything that happened but Milton counters that he merely set the stage and that Kevin chose to neglect Mary Ann and defend the guilty Kevin realizes he always wanted to win no matter the cost Christabella appears and Milton announces that he wants Kevin and Christabella Kevin s half sister to conceive the Antichrist Kevin initially appears to acquiesce but then abruptly shoots himself in the head Milton s Satanic rage burns Christabella alive initially revealing his demonic form before turning into a winged angel who resembles Kevin Suddenly Kevin finds himself back at the recess of the Gettys trial the entire experience having been a vision of the future He returns to the courtroom and finds Mary Ann alive and well Once the trial resumes Kevin now aware of what will happen should he cross examine the victim announces that he cannot represent his client despite the threat of disbarment Kevin s reporter friend Larry offers him a high profile interview promising to make him famous Encouraged by Mary Ann Kevin agrees After they leave Larry transforms into Milton who breaks the fourth wall and declares Vanity definitely my favorite sin Cast Edit nbsp nbsp Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron star Keanu Reeves as Kevin Lomax Al Pacino as John Milton Satan Charlize Theron as Mary Ann Lomax Jeffrey Jones as Eddie Barzoon Judith Ivey as Alice Lomax Connie Nielsen as Christabella Andreoli Craig T Nelson as Alexander Cullen Heather Matarazzo as Barbara Tamara Tunie as Jackie Heath Murphy Guyer as Barbara s Father Ruben Santiago Hudson as Leamon Heath Michael Lombard as Judge Poe Debra Monk as Pam Garrety Vyto Ruginis as Mitch Weaver Justice Department Laura Harrington as Melissa Black Pamela Gray as Diana Barzoon Mohammad B Ghaffari as M B Ghaffari as Bashir Toabal George Wyner as Meisel Neal Jones as Larry a Florida reporter Don King as himself 3 Roy Jones Jr as himself uncredited 4 Delroy Lindo as Phillipe Moyez uncredited 5 Chris Bauer as Lloyd Gettys Monica Keena as Alessandra Cullen Senator Al D Amato as himself 3 Harsh Nayyar as Parvathi ReshThemes and interpretations Edit nbsp Themes evoke John Milton s Paradise Lost and its rebel angels previously depicted by artist William Blake nbsp Faust s Deal with the Devil bears similarities to the film s themes nbsp Gustave Dore s portrayal of Dante s Satan in his icy abode The Devil character s name is a direct homage to John Milton who wrote Paradise Lost 6 quoted by Lomax with the line Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heav n 7 Despite this the thrust of Milton s epic was to rebuke the devil 8 As a rebel against God complaining of being perpetually underestimated the Milton character like Paradise Lost s Satan is Heav n running from Heav n with a sense of injur d merit 9 Professor Eric C Brown judges the climax in which Milton attempts to persuade Lomax to have sex with his half sister to conceive the Antichrist to be the most Miltonic as the sculptures become animated in carnal activities evoking Paradise Lost s Downfall of the Rebel Angels 7 The tirade Milton gives in this sequence is at times also reminiscent of Satan s lines in Paradise Lost Books I and II 10 In U S literary education Milton s temptation of Lomax in the climax in which he rationalizes rebellion against God for a Look but don t touch model has been compared to Satan urging Eve to eat forbidden fruit in Paradise Lost Book IX lines 720 730 11 If they all things who enclos d Knowledge of good and evil in this tree That whoso eats thereof forthwith attains Wisdom without their leave and wherein lies Th offence that Man should thus attain to know In his DVD commentary Taylor Hackford did not name Paradise Lost as an inspiration instead citing the legend of Faust 12 An underlying concept of the story is a Faustian bargain offered to a character with free will 13 Philosopher Peter van Inwagen writes Milton referring to free will as a bitch when Lomax contemplates selling his soul moves away from a legalistic definition of free will as uncoerced into the philosophical realm of its definition 14 As with Goethe s Faust the Devil commonly depicted in cinema is associated with lust and temptation 15 Milton shows Lomax many seductive women in order to induce his fall Sex or rape is usually also the means by which Satan creates the Antichrist as in Roman Polanski s 1968 film Rosemary s Baby In The Devil s Advocate someone other than Satan will have sex to conceive the Antichrist though Milton nevertheless brutally rapes Mary Ann 15 Incest becomes a way of creating the Antichrist since the offspring of Satan s son and daughter will inherit much of Satan s genetic makeup 6 Dante Alighieri s Inferno raised visual potential that informed the film 16 Dantean scholar Amilcare A Iannucci argues the plot follows the Divine Comedy model in beginning with selva oscura in Lomax losing his conscience defending a guilty man and then entering and exploring deeper circles of Hell 17 Iannucci compares the office building structure to the circles listing fireplaces where flames are always present demonic visual phenomena and water outside Milton s office analogized to Dante s Satan s icy home albeit situated at the top of Hell as opposed to the bottom 18 Free will is also a major theme in the Divine Comedy with the film s musings on the concept being similar to Dante s Purgatorio 16 82 83 if the present world has gone astray in you is the cause in you it s to be sought 19 Other religious references are present In describing New York City as Babylon Alice Lomax invokes Revelation 18 20 Babylon the great is fallen is fallen and has become a dwelling place of demons a prison for every foul spirit and a cage for every unclean and hated bird Milton tempting Lomax is possibly also inspired by the Biblical Temptation of Christ 6 Aside from Milton other character names have been commented on Author Kelly J Wyman matches Mary Ann the virginal figure who falls victim to Milton to the Virgin Mary and adds the literal translation of Christabella is Beautiful Christ 21 and that the title refers to the Catholic Church s Devil s advocates and lawyers as advocates 22 Eric C Brown finds Barzoon s name and character to be reminiscent of the demon prince Beelzebub 7 Scholars Miguel A De La Torre and Albert Hernandez observe the vision of Satan as CEO wearing expensive clothing and engaging in business had appeared in popular culture before including the 1942 novel The Screwtape Letters 23 Production EditDevelopment Edit nbsp Eugene Delacroix s depiction of Milton dictating Paradise Lost Milton s line Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heav n is used in the screenplay Andrew Neiderman wrote The Devil s Advocate as a novel and it was published in 1990 by Simon and Schuster 24 Believing his story could be adapted into a film Neiderman approached Warner Bros and claimed to have led his successful sale with the synopsis It s about a law firm in New York that represents only guilty people and never loses 25 Various screenplay adaptations of The Devil s Advocate had been pitched to U S cinema studios with Joel Schumacher planned to direct it with Brad Pitt as the young lawyer 26 Schumacher planned a sequence in which Pitt would descend into the New York subway system which would be modeled on the circles of hell in Dante s Divine Comedy 27 With no actor to play Satan this project collapsed 26 The O J Simpson murder trial and its controversial outcome gave new impetus to relaunching the project with a 60 million budget 26 Warner hired Taylor Hackford to direct the new attempt 27 The director embraced the legal drama aspect theorizing The courtroom has become the gladiator arena of the late twentieth century Following the progress of a sensational trial is a spectator sport 28 Tony Gilroy led much of the rewrite with supervision by Hackford who envisioned it as a modern day morality play and Faustian tale 29 As the screenplay developed free will became a theme in which Milton does not actually cause events Hackford wanted suggestions that Milton does not kill Barzoon as he defied his muggers or United States Attorney Weaver who arrogantly did not watch for vehicles before stepping onto the road 30 The screenwriters added the plot element that Lomax was Milton s son and that Milton could produce the Antichrist neither of which are in the novel 31 Hackford cited the films Rosemary s Baby and The Omen as influences and both had explored the Antichrist mythology 12 31 Another change from the novel was converting the book s lesbian client to the pedophile Lloyd Gettys avoiding undertones of homophobia 32 In an early version of the screenplay the Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven quotation is given to Milton rather than Lomax 8 Casting Edit Al Pacino had previously been offered the Devil role in attempts at adapting Neiderman s novel but before final rewrites rejected it on three occasions 29 for the cliched nature of the character 26 Pacino suggested Robert Redford and Sean Connery for the role 33 Keanu Reeves chose to star in Devil s Advocate over Speed 2 despite a promised 11 million for the sequel to his 1994 hit Speed 29 according to Reeves staff the actor was averse to performing in two consecutive action films after Chain Reaction 1996 34 On Devil s Advocate Reeves agreed to a pay cut worth millions of dollars so that the producers could meet Pacino s salary demands 35 To prepare for the role Pacino watched the 1941 film The Devil and Daniel Webster and observed tips from Walter Huston as Mr Scratch He also read Dante s Inferno and Paradise Lost 26 Connie Nielsen a Danish actress was selected by Hackford for Christabella who speaks several languages with Hackford saying Nielsen already spoke multiple languages 30 Craig T Nelson known for his television work was cast against type in a villainous role 30 Filming Edit nbsp nbsp nbsp Filming took place at New York s 57th Street Central Presbyterian Church and Church of the Heavenly Rest Principal photography began in New York in 1996 but struggled by November Delays were caused by the dismissals of the original cinematographer and assistant directors while an anonymous source claimed Pacino found Hackford to be conceited and loud 27 An executive alleged Pacino was typically late to work though producer Arnold Kopelson said this was not the case 27 Hackford later said Pacino was professional even though his status meant he did not need to be 36 Production designer Bruno Rubeo was tasked to create Milton s apartment aiming for a very loose and very sexy appearance so you can t really tell where it goes 37 Hackford said on this set he encouraged Reeves and Pacino to feel the room and develop some improvisation 38 Pacino came up with the idea of dancing to It Happened in Monterey by Frank Sinatra and Hackford immediately adopted the idea 36 When Lomax leaves to meet Milton he walks through 57th Street in New York which is abnormally devoid of people or vehicles It was shot at the actual 57th Street with the filmmakers having it emptied at 7 30 a m on a Sunday 30 The offices were shot at the Continental Club in Manhattan and the Continental Plaza though the water outside Milton s office was added later by computer effects 37 In constructing the firm sets Hackford and Rubeo consulted one architect from Japan and one from Italy to craft an ultra modern look to display Milton s taste 30 Donald Trump s penthouse in Trump Tower Fifth Avenue was lent to the production for Alexander Cullen s residence 37 39 A number of churches and courts hosted production The interior of New York City s Church of the Heavenly Rest was used for the scene where Theron s character says Milton raped her 29 39 The outside of Central Presbyterian Church was photographed for Barzoon s funeral while Pacino was inside the Manhattan Church of the Most Holy Redeemer for the holy water sequence 39 For court scenes New Jersey s Bergen County Court House was employed for production 40 as were historic courthouses in New York 41 After the completion of the New York shoot in March 1997 production moved to Florida in July 1997 42 In Jacksonville Florida the interior of the Mrs Howard s business in Riverside and Avondale was used for New York scenes Its co owner Jim Howard remodeled the store and appeared as an extra 42 The Gainesville church scenes were shot at an actual Gainesville church after Hackford persuaded the pastor and his members to participate and that his story was about combating Satan 30 Theron had to briefly leave the United States while filming because she was working illegally 43 Post production Edit At the end of the film John Milton morphs into Lucifer as a fallen angel The crew created the effect by combining life masks depicting Reeves Pacino in 1997 and Pacino as he appeared in the 1972 film The Godfather 44 The Godfather make up artist Dick Smith supplied the life mask he made in the 1970s to Devil s Advocate artist Rick Baker Smith s former protege 45 Additionally Baker created images for demonic faces seen on real actresses and actors with hands also appearing to move underneath Tamara Tunie s skin a digital creation with the contributions of Richard Greenberg and Stephanie Powell 30 Shots of ballerinas moving in water were used as a basis for Milton s animated sculpture 30 Special effects producer Edward L Williams said he filmed the people for the statue effect and that they were naked and placed in a tank next to a blue screen 46 It took three months to film the people and then add the computer effects at a cost of 2 million or 40 of the overall budget for special effects 46 James Newton Howard a past collaborator with Hackford was tasked to write the score 47 Hackford dubbed over Pacino s performance of It Happened in Monterey with Sinatra s voice 38 Paint It Black by The Rolling Stones is also used for the film s conclusion 48 Release EditDuring early stages of photography Warner aspired to a release in August 1997 27 The film eventually had its release on October 17 1997 26 on the same day as another horror film I Know What You Did Last Summer 49 To promote the release Warner s website included the warning on hell s gate from Dante s Inferno Canto III Abandon every hope ye who enter here with credits presented as circles of hell 9 The television advertising and poster were upfront as to Milton being Satan though this is not explicitly revealed in the film itself until its later acts 50 Around 475 000 copies of the VHS and DVD were produced by February 1998 but their release into the home video market was delayed pending the Hart v Warner Bros Inc lawsuit 51 The film afterwards went into regular airings on TNT and TBS 52 A Blu ray edition was released in Region A in 2012 as an Unrated Director s Cut in which the art in the climax previously subject to the lawsuit is digitally redone 53 Reception EditBox office Edit On its opening weekend in October 1997 The Devil s Advocate earned 12 2 million finishing second in the U S box office to I Know What You Did Last Summer which made 16 1 million 54 The Devil s Advocate was largely competing against thriller films aimed at youth in the Halloween season 54 By December 6 1997 it grossed 56 1 million 55 It ended its run on February 12 1998 with a gross of 61 million in North America and 92 million elsewhere 56 Critical response Edit nbsp nbsp Al Pacino received positive reviews for his performance as Satan under the guise of John Milton The character was named after the author of Paradise Lost Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes assigned the film an approval rating of 64 based on 59 reviews with an average rating of 6 3 10 The site s critics consensus states Though it is ultimately somewhat undone by its own lofty ambitions The Devil s Advocate is a mostly effective blend of supernatural thrills and character exploration 57 Metacritic gives the film a weighted average score of 60 out of 100 based on 19 critics indicating mixed or average reviews 58 Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of B on an A to F scale 59 Roger Ebert wrote The movie never fully engaged me my mind raced ahead of the plot and the John Grisham stuff clashed with the Exorcist stuff 50 In The New York Times Janet Maslin complimented the gratifyingly light touch of using John Milton s name and special effects with gimmicks well tethered to reality 60 David Denby wrote in New York that Devil s Advocate was preposterously entertaining and predicted it would get viewers debating 61 Entertainment Weekly gave it a B with Owen Gleiberman declaring it at once silly overwrought and almost embarrassingly entertaining and crediting Pacino for his performance 62 Gleiberman later declared that Pacino had won the magazine s yearly award for Best Overacting 63 Variety s Todd McCarthy declared it fairly entertaining displaying a nearly operatic sense of absurdity and excess 3 Dave Kehr of New York Daily News also preferred Pacino over Reeves assessing The Devil s Advocate as Faust moved to Manhattan though disappointed that a witty undercurrent becomes an exaggerated moralism 64 Critic James Berardinelli wrote that it is a highly enjoyable motion picture that s part character study part supernatural thriller and part morality play 65 In The New York Times Magazine Michiko Kakutani objected to trivializing Satan reducing Paradise Lost s vision of the War in Heaven to an extended lawyer joke 66 The Christian Science Monitor s David Sterritt found it an unsurprising cinematic re imagining of Faust with Satan a lawyer but he recognized its message of the need for personal responsibility albeit with more lascivious sex and shocking violence than a traditional Faust rendition 67 The film won the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film 68 Pacino was also nominated for the MTV Movie Award for Best Villain 69 In 2014 Yahoo named The Devil s Advocate as Pacino s Most Underrated Film claiming Pacino s hammy devil never got his due but there s something to be said for an actor who can pull off this level of theatrics 70 In his 2015 Movie Guide Leonard Maltin gave it three stars finding Reeves credible and Pacino delicious 71 Scott Mendelson wrote in Forbes in 2015 that I love this trashy vulgar unapologetically puritan melodrama more than I care to admit 49 In 2016 The Huffington Post reported on an online debate over the possible symbolism in the costume design as Lomax appears in suits that are light in the beginning becoming increasingly darker as his morality slips away The counterpoint is that this merely reflects his increasing social status 72 Legacy EditLawsuit Edit The film was the subject of legal action in Hart v Warner Bros Inc in 1997 The claim was that the sculpture featuring human forms in John Milton s apartment closely resembled the Ex nihilo sculpture by Frederick Hart on the facade of the Episcopal National Cathedral in Washington D C and that a scene involving the sculpture infringed Hart s rights under copyright law in the United States 73 Hart and the National Cathedral jointly initiated the action with an argument similar to architect Lebbeus Woods s successful lawsuit over imagery in the film 12 Monkeys 55 Defenses available to Warner were that the effect was designed without knowledge of Ex nihilo or fair use 55 After a federal judge ruled that the film s video release would be delayed until the case went to trial unless a settlement was reached Warner Bros agreed to edit the scene for future releases and to attach stickers to unedited videotapes to indicate there was no relation between the art in the film and Hart s work 74 The settlement in February 1998 meant 475 000 copies of the VHS and DVD could go into rental stores and businesses 51 Adaptations Edit In 2014 Andrew Neiderman wrote a prequel novel Judgment Day about John Milton arriving in New York City and obtaining control of a major law firm Neiderman brought the book to Warner Bros for a television series adaptation 75 John Wells and Arnold Kopelson unsuccessfully attempted to adapt Devil s Advocate into a series in 2014 76 Produced by Warner Bros Television 77 Wells and Kopelson took the project to NBC for a television pilot written by Matt Venne 76 A musical play based on The Devil s Advocate is as of in development citation needed Julian Woolford also launched a stage adaptation Advocaat van de Duivel in the Netherlands in 2015 78 References Edit The Devil s Advocate 18 British Board of Film Classification October 31 1997 Archived from the original on November 13 2013 Retrieved April 19 2013 a b The Devil s Advocate 1997 The Numbers Nash Information Services LLC Archived from the original on June 15 2020 Retrieved August 8 2019 a b c McCarthy Todd October 10 1997 Review The Devil s Advocate Variety Archived from the original on August 24 2017 Retrieved August 24 2017 Stroud Matthew September 23 2009 Filmmaker brings stories and opportunities back home Pittsburgh Post Gazette Archived from the original on August 25 2017 Retrieved August 24 2017 Walston Brandon K October 24 1997 Pacino Steals the Show in Advocate The Harvard Crimson Archived from the original on August 19 2017 Retrieved August 19 2017 a b c Fry 2008 pp 116 117 a b c Brown 2006 p 93 a b Netzley 2006 p 114 a b Iannucci 2004 p 12 Netzley 2006 p 116 Webb 2007 p 126 a b Netzley 2006 p 115 Brown 2006 pp 91 92 van Inwagen 2017 p 151 a b Wyman 2009 p 303 Iannucci 2004 p x Iannucci 2004 p 13 Iannucci 2004 pp 13 14 Iannucci 2004 pp 14 15 Brown 2006 p 92 Wyman 2009 p 307 Wyman 2009 pp 307 308 De La Torre amp Hernandez 2011 p 14 Netzley 2006 p 123 TDS May 23 2014 Author Andrew Neiderman enjoys literary TV success The Desert Sun Archived from the original on July 4 2021 Retrieved August 19 2017 a b c d e f Mathews Jack October 15 1997 Jumping into the Fire In Advocate Al Pacino takes a walk on the dark side Luckily he s no stranger to these mean streets The Los Angeles Times Archived from the original on September 18 2015 Retrieved August 17 2017 a b c d e Brennan Judy November 27 1996 On Pacino Film They re Having Devil of a Time The Los Angeles Times Archived from the original on May 9 2014 Retrieved August 18 2017 Levi 2005 p 128 a b c d Hamill Denis February 16 1997 Eye On Evil In Devil s Advocate Taylor Hackford Takes Satan To Court New York Daily News Archived from the original on August 24 2017 Retrieved August 24 2017 a b c d e f g h Hackford Taylor 1998 The Devil s Advocate audio commentary DVD Warner Home Video a b Schoell 2016 p 113 Schoell 2016 p 112 In the novel the pedophile client was a woman a lesbian and it was strongly implied that she was guilty although many of the characters seemed to think it was bad enough that she was a lesbian See the Cast of The Devil s Advocate then and Now February 22 2014 Nashawaty Chris June 14 1996 Speed bump Entertainment Weekly No 331 p 7 Keanu Gives Up Matrix Money ABC News September 10 1999 Archived from the original on July 1 2012 Retrieved August 18 2017 a b Grobel 2008 p xxxii a b c Rubeo Bruno 1998 On Location The Devil s Advocate DVD Warner Home Video a b Guerrasio Jason February 1 2017 This Oscar winning director reveals the secrets of working with De Niro and Pacino Business Insider Archived from the original on August 25 2017 Retrieved August 24 2017 a b c Ocker 2012 p 200 History of the Bergen County Courthouse Bergen County Sheriff s Office 2017 Archived from the original on August 25 2017 Retrieved August 25 2017 Ocker 2012 p 199 a b Devil s Advocate brings Keanu Reeves to Florida The Florida Times Union Jacksonville Florida July 6 1997 Archived from the original on August 25 2017 Retrieved August 24 2017 Theron Thrown Out Of America While Filming Devil s Advocate Contactmusic com WENN September 16 2009 Retrieved October 12 2023 Hackford Taylor 1998 Special Effects The Devil s Advocate DVD Warner Home Video Robb 2003 p 144 a b Wilkinson Deborah March 2000 His effects are truly special Black Enterprise p 66 Heine 2016 p 7 Kubernik 2006 p 46 a b Mendelson Scott October 13 2015 Halloween Saw II And The 10 Biggest Horror Hits of October Forbes Archived from the original on August 19 2017 Retrieved August 18 2017 a b Ebert Roger October 17 1997 Devil s Advocate Chicago Sun Times Chicago Illinois Sun Times Media Group Archived from the original on August 18 2017 Retrieved August 19 2017 a b Stern Christopher February 16 1998 Settlement reached in Devil s Advocate case Variety Archived from the original on August 19 2017 Retrieved August 18 2017 Netzley 2006 p 113 Spurlin Thomas September 22 2012 The Devil s Advocate Blu ray DVD Talk Archived from the original on August 19 2017 Retrieved August 18 2017 a b Associated Press October 20 1997 I Know What You Did Scares Up Big Box Office The Los Angeles Times Archived from the original on May 27 2016 Retrieved August 18 2017 a b c Masters Brooke A December 6 1997 Sculptor Cathedral Sue Over Movie s Art The Washington Post Archived from the original on August 20 2017 Retrieved August 19 2017 The Devil s Advocate 1997 Box Office Mojo Archived from the original on August 10 2017 Retrieved August 18 2017 The Devil s Advocate 1997 Rotten Tomatoes Flixster October 17 1997 Archived from the original on May 23 2019 Retrieved May 16 2023 The Devil s Advocate reviews Metacritic CBS Interactive Archived from the original on August 11 2010 Retrieved August 24 2017 Find CinemaScore Type Devil s Advocate in the search box CinemaScore Archived from the original on January 2 2018 Retrieved July 10 2020 Maslin Janet October 17 1997 Film Review Joining Evil Esq At Satan amp Satan The New York Times Vol 147 no 50948 New York City p E12 Archived from the original on August 17 2017 Retrieved August 17 2017 Denby David October 27 1997 Satan Place New York New York City New York Media p 80 Gleiberman Owen October 24 1997 Satanic versus Entertainment Weekly No 402 New York City Meredith Corporation p 40 Archived from the original on April 6 2019 Retrieved August 17 2017 Gleiberman Owen December 26 1997 Best amp Worst Movie Campaigns Entertainment Weekly Retrieved October 26 2019 Kehr Dave October 17 1997 Movie Review The Devil s Advocate New York Daily News Archived from the original on August 17 2017 Retrieved August 17 2017 Berardinelli James 1997 The Devil s Advocate Reelviews Archived from the original on December 19 2019 Retrieved February 5 2011 Kakutani Michiko December 7 1997 To hell with him New York Times Magazine Vol 147 no 50999 New York City New York Times Company p 36 Archived from the original on August 20 2017 Retrieved August 19 2017 Sterritt David October 20 1997 Devil s Advocate falls into Sin and Scripture syndrome The Christian Science Monitor Vol 89 no 227 p 15 Archived from the original on September 8 2017 Retrieved September 7 2017 Past Saturn Award Recipients Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy and Horror Films Archived from the original on July 4 2021 Retrieved August 17 2017 Katz Richard April 14 1998 MTV watchers pick their pix Variety Archived from the original on February 2 2017 Retrieved August 17 2017 Why The Devil s Advocate Is Pacino s Most Underrated Film Yahoo December 5 2014 Archived from the original on August 18 2017 Retrieved August 17 2017 Maltin 2014 Bradley Bill April 28 2016 This Will Totally Change How You See The Devil s Advocate The Huffington Post New York City Huffington Post Media Group Archived from the original on August 18 2017 Retrieved August 17 2017 Niebuhr Gustav December 5 1997 Sculpture in a Movie Leads to Suit The New York Times Archived from the original on August 19 2017 Retrieved August 18 2017 Film studio settles claim over copyrighted sculpture Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press February 23 1998 Archived from the original on July 27 2011 Retrieved August 18 2017 Remling Amanda April 12 2014 Author Andrew Neiderman Talks About V C Andrews s Future Devil s Advocate Prequel And More International Business Times Archived from the original on August 19 2017 Retrieved August 19 2017 a b Andreeva Nellie August 18 2014 NBC Developing The Devil s Advocate Drama Series Produced By John Wells amp Arnold Kopelson Deadline Hollywood Archived from the original on August 19 2017 Retrieved August 18 2017 Hibberd James August 18 2014 Devil s Advocate TV series in development at NBC Entertainment Weekly Archived from the original on August 19 2017 Retrieved August 18 2017 Advocaat van de Duivel in De Reeehorst Ede Stad in Dutch Ede Netherlands November 25 2015 Archived from the original on August 19 2017 Retrieved August 19 2017 Bibliography Edit Brown Eric C 2006 Popularizing Pandaemonium Milton and the Horror Film In L Knoppers G Colon Semenza Gregory M Colon Semenza eds Milton in Popular Culture Springer ISBN 1 40398318 6 De La Torre Miguel A Hernandez Albert 2011 The Quest for the Historical Satan Minneapolis Fortress Press ISBN 978 1 45141481 3 Fry Carrol Lee 2008 Cinema of the Occult New Age Satanism Wicca and Spiritualism in Film Bethlehem Lehigh University Press ISBN 978 0 93422395 9 Grobel Lawrence 2008 Al Pacino New York London Toronto and Sydney Simon and Schuster ISBN 978 1 41695556 6 Heine Erik 2016 James Newton Howard s Signs A Film Score Guide Lanham Boulder NY and London Rowman amp Littlefield ISBN 978 144225604 0 Iannucci Amilcare A 2004 Dante Cinema and television University of Toronto Press ISBN 0 80208827 9 Kubernik Harvey 2006 Hollywood Shack Job Rock Music in Film and on Your Screen Albuquerque University of New Mexico Press ISBN 0 82633542 X Levi Ross D 2005 The Celluloid Courtroom A History of Legal Cinema Westport CT and London Greenwood Publishing Group ISBN 0 27598233 5 Maltin Leonard 2014 Leonard Maltin s 2015 Movie Guide Penguin ISBN 978 0 69818361 2 Netzley Ryan 2006 Better To Reign in Hell Than Serve in Heaven Is That It Ethics Apocalypticism and Allusion in The Devil s Advocate In L Knoppers G Colon Semenza Gregory M Colon Semenza eds Milton in Popular Culture Springer ISBN 1 40398318 6 Ocker J W 2012 The New York Grimpendium A Guide to Macabre and Ghastly Sites in New York State Woodstock VT The Countryman Press ISBN 978 1 58157772 3 Robb Brian J 2003 Keanu Reeves An Excellent Adventure 2 ed Plexus Publishing ISBN 0 85965313 7 Schoell William 2016 Al Pacino In Films and on Stage 2nd ed Jefferson NC McFarland ISBN 978 0 78647196 6 van Inwagen Peter 2017 Thinking about Free Will Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 10716650 9 Webb Rebecca K 2007 A Conflict of Paradigms Social Epistemology and the Collapse of Literary Education Lexington Books ISBN 978 0 73911755 2 Wyman Kelly J 2009 Satan in the Movies The Continuum Companion to Religion and Film Continuum ISBN 978 0 82649991 2 External links Edit nbsp Film portal nbsp Speculative fiction Horror portal nbsp Wikiquote has quotations related to The Devil s Advocate Official Devil s Advocate site at Warner Bros The Devil s Advocate at IMDb The Devil s Advocate at AllMovie The Devil s Advocate at Box Office Mojo The Devil s Advocate at Rotten Tomatoes The Devil s Advocate at Metacritic nbsp Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title The Devil 27s Advocate 1997 film amp oldid 1179759192, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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