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Keanu Reeves takes a job at a Satanic law firm in 1997's The Devil's Advocate. I saw this when it first came out but all I remembered about it was that it referenced John Milton and that people tend to make fun of Al Pacino's performance in it. Although I agree with most people that Pacino's performances after the early 1980s are inexplicably inferior to his earlier work, I don't find his performance terribly bad in The Devil's Advocate. The movie, with a screenplay by Tony Gilroy, is also much better written than I remembered.

Reeves plays Kevin Lomax, a criminal defense attorney in Gainesville, Florida with a talent for winning unwinnable cases. When he manages to secure a not guilty verdict for a man who's clearly guilty of the child molestation he's charged with, Kevin is recruited to join a prestigious firm in New York. So Kevin moves to the city, into a vast, luxury apartment with his wife, Mary Ann (Charlize Theron).

A lot of the movie's second act is from Mary Ann's perspective as the wives of other lawyers at the firm slowly exert more and more psychological control over her. The head of the firm, John Milton (Pacino), gets in on the act when he coerces her into changing her hairstyle.

While Mary Ann's being driven mad, Kevin finds himself taking to his big city cases like a duck to water. Although the manipulations of Mary Ann are pretty blatant, I like how the story around Kevin is driven by his own compulsion to sin. When Mary Ann is ailing, Kevin refuses to step aside from the high profile case he's working on.

In addition to Pacino's Satan actually going by the name John Milton, my favourite 17th century poet is also directly quoted. Pacino's Satan also behaves like Milton's Satan to some extent. He's motivated not simply to corrupt people but to use their behaviour to demonstrate flaws in God's design.

The Devil's Advocate is available on The Criterion Channel.

Sonnet 1987

Eternal slumber beats the sugar drum.
Effective beats were melted down for grain.
A melty crust was crushed in lively rum.
A brewer's life distilled itself in vain.
Distilling juice produced a troubled drop.
For trouble boils late the flagrant fool.
A flagrant flange adorns the saucy top.
A pizza sauce absorbed the slacker's drool.
A slacker finds his peace beneath the box.
To find a card, the seekers want a deck.
A special card connects the feet to socks.
Connexions wane beneath the wooly neck.
From peerless sheep the wool was quickly sheared.
By watchful sheep the dreams of all were cleared.