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sketch by Roberto Sanchez
Al Pacino’s devil isn’t terrifying because he’s evil.
He’s terrifying because he sounds reasonable.
Watching The Devil’s Advocate again years later surprised me.
The first time I saw it in the 90s, I mostly remembered the spectacle.
The statues moving in Milton’s office.
Al Pacino’s charisma when he goes full devil mode.
At that time the movie was entertainment.
Now, watching it again, I noticed something different.
The craft.
It isn’t really a horror film.
It’s a psychological film disguised as a supernatural story.
The creepiness isn’t in gore or jump scares.
It’s in the way temptation works.
Kevin Lomax, Keanu Reeves’ character, is driven by one thing: winning.
Winning cases.
Winning respect.
Winning status.
And the film slowly shows how that ambition narrows his vision.
He begins to see the world through one tunnel: success.
Meanwhile, his wife Mary Ann starts seeing something else.
There’s a scene in the dressing room with the other lawyers’ wives where their faces subtly morph into something demonic. It’s quick. Almost hidden.
But it tells you something important.
Mary Ann isn’t chasing the same prize Kevin is chasing.
So she notices things he doesn’t.
She sees behind the curtain.
Kevin only sees the ladder.
That difference becomes the tragedy of the film.
What fascinated me most watching it now was Al Pacino’s performance as John Milton.
He doesn’t behave like a monster.
He behaves like a friend.
He’s charming.
Funny.
Encouraging.
He doesn’t force anyone to do anything.
He just places the pieces on the board and lets people make their own choices.
And that’s what makes the character unsettling.
The devil in this story isn’t terror.
It’s temptation.
Ambition itself isn’t evil.
But when ambition becomes blind, it can quietly remove your humanity.
There’s a moment near the end of the film when Kevin screams:
“I win. I always win.”
The way Keanu delivers that line stuck with me.
There’s conviction in it.
A desperate determination to prove he’s not weak.
I understood that feeling.
Winning can feel like proof that you matter.
That you’re not small.
But the film slowly reveals the cost of that obsession.
By the time Kevin realizes what he’s become, the wreckage around him is already there.
And that’s when the story reveals its real point.
You always have a choice.
You can stop.
You can step out of the tunnel.
You can choose something different.
That’s the quiet lesson hidden inside The Devil’s Advocate.
Not that the devil exists.
But that sometimes the most dangerous voice is the one telling you exactly what you want to hear.
Reader question:
Have you ever chased something so hard that you didn’t realize what it was costing you?
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I post reflections, daily prompts, and Street Cinema every Saturday.
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