The Devils AdvocateHollywood makes the opposite of sugar-coated pills: a sweet center with a thin shell of moral bitterness. The Devil's Advocate, which stars Keanu Reeves as an ambitious small-town lawyer who ends up putting in time in Lucifer's law office, would be a well-made, moderately enjoyable thriller if it were about half an hour shorter and didn't spend so much time trying to pretend it's about something. Al Pacino's performance as a high-powered Mephistophelian lawyer named John Milton is as canny a feat of self-parody as Jack Nicholson's turn in Batman. But the rest of the movie has none of Pacino's zest, 英文影评 back instead on heavy-handed clichés about unscrupulous defense attorneys and the amoral rich. There's no way to make the deliberate nastiness of some scenes, particularly those involving Reeves' wife (Charlize Theron), jibe with the glib off-handedness of others; the three credited screenwriters may have something to do with the fact that The Devil's Advocate feels like it's trying to be several movies at once, only one of which is any good.