The Devil's Advocate

Recently, I saw Al Pacino's 'The Devil's Advocate', for nth time, since I've lost count of how many times I would have watched the movie.

Pacino's mere screen presence (eventhough he looks his real age), just carries the film and its message.

The coy smile, slightly exaggerated body language to suggest the lavishness and luxury of Devil and the modulation.... Al Pacino just steals the frames with the co-actor Keanu Reaves looking hapless.

Especially, in the climax block, when Al Pacino (read Devil) offers the young advocate the world (literally!), if he becomes a part of the empire and agrees to create a devilish-nexgen, one could see what seperates an ordinary actor and an extraordinary one like Pacino. He coerces, begs, commands and all the while moves and occupies the total stage like a conjurer listing out all his tricks to listless audience.

His gravely voice goes back and forth, high and low, reverberating and echoeing the message he wants to convey, all so powerfully! With a very subtly mixed FX as backdrop, when he completes his act, you are spellbound and could never help but applauding this great actor and such a great performance. The film, apart from Pacino's performance has a very noteworthy cinematography, background score and an apt editing, not racy not too subtle.

Al Pacino as Devil in the Climax

The film has its many ironies and paradoxes, intentionally inbuilt, like Keanu's mother, a staunch loyalist to God, is mothered by the Devil.

Comparing his contemporaries, the role what Al Pacino had played, one gets to think, could have been portrayed by Robert De Nero, but one doubts how far he would have fared. After all, after seeing Pacino, we compare with a benchmark!