Keanu Reeves plays ruthless lawyer Kevin Lomax, he has an enviable 64 wins to 0 losses to his name. And we can see why: the vicious bastard makes a young girlie cry in court. This attracts a job offer which is quite literally red hot.

Al Pacino plays John Milton, who we soon discover is the devil. Kevin's job offer initially seems very generous with all of the high flying perks of big apartments in grand old buildings. Even his wife is happy - but that doesn't last very long as, when she goes out shopping with the wives of his work mates, something devil-tastic is going on... ya hargh hargh....

18. Contains moments of devil face contortions (CGI), fashion shopping, pert breasts, middle-aged people jogging, heart attacks, fast hairstyle changing during love making, standing on ledges on high up buildings.

"My, Mr Pacino, you naughty devil person you, or are you a poor victim of dream abuse? We are never told, or, rather, we are told then we are untold and then we are told differently again."

"I could have been a lawyer if I knew how to make my opponent cough like that in court - bravisimo!"

Just when you think there is death and destruction all round, we are 'treated' to a Bobby Ewing (Dallas) type twist at the end, but without the shower scene, this time using public toilets...

Kevin Lomax's wife goes mad as the devil cherubs (or whatever you call them) flash their devil-ugliness to her to give her a breakdown - Kevin does not believe her, thinking she is trying to get him to have babies. She is eventually taken to a mental hospital but slits her throat with a large shard of (reinforced!) glass from the door Kevin is trying to break down, in exactly the way that kind of glass is not intended to break.

Kevin is not having a good time, his religious mother tells him that John Milton is his father, a one night stand of many years ago. This explains everything.

John Milton, the devil, reveals his diabolical scheme to Kevin. The 20th century has been his decade, he expounds, and so to end the decade he wants to top everything. But the only way this can happen is if Kevin has a child. Kevin does not want to do this, so shoots himself in the head, thus saving all of human kind.

However, the movie then cuts back to the court case from the beginning of the movie - in which he persecutes a young girl to protect his client. He shocks the court by saying he wants to drop the case - a potentially career destroying move, but does this to show he has a heart...

Que John Milton at the end - is this a dream or what? You decide.

The movie never achieves a level much better than super-special TV movie. The special effects are quite shocking for their understatedness, however the thing that annoys is that if this is all a dream then lots of things happen in the movie which are not the Point of View of Lomax (he didn't believe his wife saw the devil's workings but we clearly saw it)... we were confused.

It is a watchable endeavor but fails to reach the status of classic in spite of the appearance of Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves, two actors we have a lot of time for. There is little real warmth here and we could care less for Lomax's plight.

March 11th 2003