Movie Description
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 novel of the same name, it is about an unusually successful young Floridian lawyer (Reeves) invited to New York City to work for a major firm. As his wife (Theron) becomes haunted by frightening visual phenomena, 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.
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 premiered to mixed reviews, with critics crediting it for entertainment value and Pacino's performance. It made over $152 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.