A quarter of a century to The Devil's Advocate

On October 13, 1997, Taylor Hackford's "The Devil's Advocate" premiered in Westwood, California. On October 17, 1997, the film was released in wide release in cinemas in the United States and Canada.

Taylor Hackford's film is an adaptation of the 1990 bestseller of the same name by American writer Andrew Neiderman. The book's success prompted the writer to approach Warner Bros. with a proposal to film the novel. The film company agreed and in 1994 hired director Joel Schumacher to direct the film. He, in turn, was going to shoot in the role of a young lawyer Brad Pitt. The problem arose with the selection of an actor for the role of John Milton. While Schumacher was looking for a suitable actor, interest in the subject of the film faded from the film company, and the project was shelved indefinitely. But very soon this interest arose again, moreover, with a vengeance.

The reason for the outbreak of interest in the topic of Andrew Neiderman's bestseller was the trial of O.J. Simpson. This process, which began in the winter and ended in the fall of 1995, literally stirred up the whole of America. I dare to say this as an eyewitness: in July-August 1995, I studied at one of the US universities. At that time, literally every day, almost 24 hours a day, the vast majority of American television channels were covering the trial. And not only TV channels. Almost everywhere one could hear from the lips of Americans "O. J. Simpson, Nicole."

Let me remind you what it is. On June 13, 1994, the bodies of his wife, Nicole Brown-Simpson, and a waiter at a nearby restaurant were found at O.J. Simpson's home. The bodies were literally torn to pieces, the woman's head was almost separated from the body, her face was terribly mutilated. The man's body was literally cut with a knife. All the evidence fell on O.J. Simpson, an extremely popular American football player at that time, and also starring in several famous films. For several days, O.J. Simpson was on the run, until finally, on June 18, he was detained by the police.

When the trial began, lawyers immediately chose a line of defense based on racial differences: they say that white police officers want to accuse a black American star of killing a white woman. The composition of the jury was very specific: 8 black women, 1 black man, 1 Hispanic and only 2 white men. The outcome of this trial, which became the longest in the history of California, was the acquittal of O. J. Simpson. And it was thanks to this decision that American lawyers gained a reputation as "devil's advocates", and interest in the topic of Niedermann's novel increased incredibly, which was what Warner Bros. decided to take advantage of.

A fairly large budget was allocated in the amount of $57 million (about $107 million today). As a director, Taylor Hackford, who had recently directed the rather successful thriller "Dolores Claiborne", was brought in. The role of lawyer Kevin Lomax Hackford offered 33-year-old, but already very popular Keanu Reeves. Reeves accepted the offer without hesitation. Moreover, when there were problems with the fee for the performer of the role of John Milton - Al Pacino - Keanu Reeves offered to reduce his fee in order to satisfy Al Pacino's requests.

Al Pacino turned down the role of "Satan" several times. Because of his refusals, both Kevin Spacey and Richard Gere auditioned for the role, but neither came up. In the end, managed to persuade Al Pacino, significantly increasing his fee (at the expense of Keanu Reeves). Later, when Al Pacino found out about this, he donated the difference to charitable causes.

Charlize Theron not immediately agreed with the proposed role as well. She was embarrassed by the need to appear naked. After all, she just turned down a role in "Showgirls" for this reason. But in the end, the attractiveness of the image of Mary Ann played a role, and she agreed.

Taylor Hackford's "The Devil's Advocate" did not earn any significant prizes, either in the US or abroad. From the most authoritative film critics, the film received mostly very unflattering reviews. The guru of American film criticism Roger Ebert gave the film only 2.5 stars out of 4 possible, noting in the review:

"the movie never fully engaged me; my mind raced ahead of the plot".

Another respected film critic, Mark Savlov, rated the film even less - two stars out of 5 and gave, perhaps, the most devastating description of the picture:

"Devil's Advocate is such a bloated, gargantuan, and ultimately tasteless juggernaut of a film that it manages to achieve a righteously cheesy splendor; rarely do we actually encounter such a brazen example of the “so bad it's good” genre of filmmaking."

Authoritative Russian film critic Sergei Kudryavtsev also rated Taylor Hackford's film not very highly - only 6 points out of 10. In a review, he noted:

"You have to be Americans, admire and at the same time hate your judicial system to the core, and especially the "hyena-like" lawyers who extort money and are ready to sell out for anything, so that, even without noticing the stupidity of the plot, get a lot of the pleasure of seeing these unprincipled defenders as the direct minions of Satan."

In fairness, it should be noted that this film received the highest ratings not from the American, but from the Russian audience.

However, the lack of festival success and negative reviews of film critics for Taylor Hackford's film "The Devil's Advocate" were compensated by ordinary moviegoers, for whom, in fact, the movie is being shot. The film grossed almost $153 million at the box office, which was almost three times the cost of its production. 68% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave the film scores from 8 to 10, and 18% of users gave the film the highest score - 10.

With that said, the rating of Taylor Hackford's film "The Devil's Advocate" according to FilmGourmand version was 7,940, which allowed the film to enter the Golden Thousand and take 819th Rank in it.