It’s basically a legal thriller that slowly mutates into supernatural horror.
This is another installment in my Second Chance Reviews series, where I revisit movies I reviewed years ago and see if time, perspective, and experience have changed my opinion. There may be spoilers, so you’ve been warned.
This time around, I’m taking a second look at 1997’s Devil’s Advocate.
Directed by Taylor Hackford, the film stars Keanu Reeves as Kevin Lomax, an undefeated Gainesville, Florida defense attorney who specializes in getting some truly terrible people off the hook. After successfully defending a child molester, Kevin is recruited to New York City by a powerful law firm run by the charismatic and mysterious John Milton, played by Al Pacino.
Milton offers Kevin everything: a massive salary, a luxury apartment, prestige, influence, and temptation at every turn.
Kevin moves to New York with his new wife Mary Ann (Charlize Theron,) despite the concerns of his deeply religious mother. As Kevin becomes consumed by high-profile cases — including one involving a wealthy client (Craig T. Nelson) — Mary Ann is left alone in their cavernous apartment, slowly unraveling as she begins noticing something deeply wrong with their new life and the other “legal widows” in the building. And if you know your theology — particularly the Book of Revelation — you can probably guess where this is heading.
When I reviewed this back in 1998, I was brutal. I gave it one star out of five. I literally called the movie stupid. I said Keanu Reeves’ performance was clueless. I found Charlize Theron annoying. I thought the script was kitschy and dumb. The only thing I really liked was Pacino, who I felt was clearly having a blast chewing the scenery. And honestly, I misread the movie entirely.
Re-watching it nearly three decades later, I had a completely different reaction. Back then, I thought the film was trying to be a dark comedy — something self-aware and almost campy. It’s not. Yes, there are winks and nudges — the name “John Milton” being a nod to the author of Paradise Lost, the heavy symbolism, the pentagram references — but the movie isn’t really trying to be funny. It’s a morality play.
It’s about temptation. It’s about greed and vanity. It’s about ambition at the cost of your soul. It’s basically a legal thriller that slowly mutates into supernatural horror. It’s like a John Grisham novel filtered through biblical apocalypse imagery. And when you watch it through that lens, it works much better.
Keanu Reeves isn’t clueless; he plays Lomax as a man intoxicated by success, and that blind ambition is the point. He’s not stupid — he’s arrogant. Charlize Theron isn’t annoying; she’s tragic. Her descent into paranoia and spiritual dread is actually one of the film’s strongest elements, and it adds emotional weight that I completely dismissed back in the day. And Al Pacino is still phenomenal, still theatrical, and clearly loving every second of it. Now his performance feels less like random scenery-chewing and more like controlled, deliberate evil incarnate.
Yes, there are moments where you wonder how Kevin doesn’t figure things out sooner, but without that blindness, you don’t have a story.
Is it a masterpiece? No. It’s still a bit long. It’s still heavy-handed. Some of the dialogue is on-the-nose. But it’s ambitious, stylish, and far more entertaining than I gave it credit for. And because I hadn’t seen it since 1998, I had forgotten major plot beats, so it still managed to surprise me in places.
I’ve seen much, much worse, and this one deserves more respect than I gave it back in the day.
3.5 out of 5.0 stars
