The Devil’s Advocate (1997)

Unlike so many pagan entertainments that seem to have no moral center as they blow things up, this one in fact does. It's very small, but it's there.

Written with brio and staged rousingly by director Taylor Hackford, the film is good, kitschy fun -- after all, how can you hate a movie that casts litigators as the new legions of Lucifer?

The film uses morphing and Rick Baker's monster effects strikingly, but it also keeps its gimmicks well tethered to reality.

The story (adapted from Andrew Neiderman's novel by Jonathan Lemkin and Tony Gilroy) is surprisingly well-handled, given its rather crazy premise.

It is not a serious film about its subject, nor is it quite a dark comedy, despite some of Pacino's good lines. The epilogue, indeed, cheats in a way I thought had been left behind in grade school. And yet there are splendid moments.