Liveblogging the '90s: 'The Devil's Advocate'

By Courtney Enlow | Liveblogging the 90s | August 8, 2014 |

By Courtney Enlow | Liveblogging the 90s | August 8, 2014 |

So, once upon a time, a beautiful fucking princess tried to liveblog Scream and it didn’t work out because that movie is a flawless treasure. So she scrapped and had to start over. But what, praytell, could she possibly choose?

In the words of Busta Pacino, HOO-AH, got you all in check. Because I’m coming at you with The Devil’s Advocate and I’m so excited about it I just can’t hide it about it. Yes I’ve had wine.

0:00 - Right off the bat this movie is literal hot fire. The opening credits are just flames and angry suns and a beach of smoke. It’s magical.

0:00 - Now Dawn Wiener is on the stand testifying against a rapist. She’s southern. She’s not very good at being southern. As I recall, no one else is either. Rapist is molesting the table because he’s enjoying the testimony so much. Now he’s molesting himself. He looks dismayed that Keanu Reeves finds this unseemly.

0:02 - This is something I learned on How Did This Get Made, but if you weren’t aware, Keanu’s name in this movie is Lomax, which is a play on the term “Low MACHS” which means he scores low in Machiavellianism. Pacino’s name is John Milton. This movie is Subtle.

0:03 - Keanu is so upset he has to look in the mirror about it and wash his hands. He washes his hands then touches the bathroom counter which is a complete nullification of the aforementioned washing.

0:05 - Keanu’s way to show what a good lawyer he is involves him yelling loudly. Shouting every line.

0:07 - Keanu is now yelling at Dawn Wiener for that time she played a game called “Special Places.” Special Places shaming! He’s yelling about special parties and special places and special stories and it’s probably because he’s jealous he’s not in the Special People Club.

0:09 - You know, it’s hard to make Charlize Theron look bad, but a curly wig goes a long way.

0:10 - Keanu just said the lawyer offering him a job is clearly a joke being played on him by a friend because the lawyer is black. I guess it’s a funny joke if you’re racist or something.

0:12 - This intense church is singing the best church song about God crushing you under his feet. Keanu’s mom goes to crazy church and looks and dresses like a Sister Wife and she thinks New York is Babylon. So Keanu might have his black people lawyer views for a reason.

0:13 - Charlize Theron is literally without age. She looks the exact same. Maybe she’s born with it and maybe it’s Maybelline, but she definitely bathes in the blood of the innocent. And sign me up if it’ll Charlize me up a bit.

0:15 - Now they’re jury picking and Keanu picks a black guy and the other lawyer is all “the guy with the dreds?!” because this movie is racist.

0:17 - And we have our first Pacino shot of the movie. His tie is made of gold and his hair is carved from marble and his throat swallowed all the other marble.

0:18 - Keanu just did that fake out thing that only happens in movies where he walks in all sad and pretends he lost but YOU GUYS HE TOTALLY WON! PILLOW FIGHT! I can’t do that kind of thing. I’d start laughing midway through the first word.

0:20 - A woman is speaking another language. Keanu is hypnotized by her as if to say “a white woman? Speaking a foreign tongue? New York is crazy!”

0:20 - I have to believe that when John Travolta goes to the hair store, he shows them a picture of Al Pacino in this movie and says “DO THAT TO ME.”

0:22 - What I like about Keanu’s performance in this movie is how his accent comes and goes so constantly and without warning, you know, like real people’s do.

0:24 - Pacino’s office that opens up to the infinity pool that goes over the edge of a building is my literal nightmare. I’m experiencing actual palpitations as I watch this.

0:25 - I’m getting vertigo you guys. I’M FALLING AND NOT JUST INTO AL’S BEAUTIFUL WIDOW’S PEAK.

0:26 - The camera panned down to Pacino’s high heels and they’re supposed to mean something but I don’t know what that something is except it might be that Tom Cruise is the devil because his kitten heels are way higher than that.

0:27 - FUCKING TAMARA TUNIE! Guys I’ve never seen Medical Examiner Melinda Warner in the wild before.

0:28 - This apartment they’re giving the Keanus is really nice. I mean, I’d work for the devil for that window seat.

0:29 - Ed Rooney is at Pacino’s firm too because this movie has a running theme of child abuse and general grody fuckery.

0:32 - Keanu now has to try a case involving animal sacrifice. It’s about health codes. Also, Charlize is painting the walls eight shades of ugly green while Tamara Tunie judges her and it’s all hugely dramatic with hugely dramatic music. HEALTH CODES! *ahhhhhhh music of chanting ahhhhhhhhness* GREEN PAINT! *ahhhhhhhhh*

0:36 - “You can work, you can play or you can breed.” Those are our options, ladies. Can I pick eat? I PICK EAT.

0:37 - Keanu is yelling about goats and the animal sacrifice guy is cursing another guy into coughing which is maybe the most mildly annoying curse you can curse someone with.

0:39 - “I’m the hand up Mona Lisa’s skirt.” I love nothing more than latter-day Pacino monologues about nothing that inform you of nothing.

0:42 - Someday I am going to go to a fancy fucking party and wear a fancy fucking gown like people in movies. And I will probably have a terrible perm like Charlize. Excuse my beauty.

0:44 - Keanu remains hypnotized by foreign language speaking lady with aggressive hair. Charlize and Al have a conversation about Charlize’s hair. Because her hair is nonsense. “It doesn’t belong to you.” I think Al’s right. I think it came from Sally Beauty.

0:45 - If my husband’s boss ever told me I’d be prettier with my hair up, I’d probably stab him. Pacino also just told Charlize that her shoulders are front lines and her neck is a mysterious border town and she’s all turned on and not stabby, so we have different ideas about things.

0:48 - There are wolves on the wall coverings. BECAUSE SUBTLE!

0:48 - The camera keeps lingering on things I don’t understand. Like Pacino’s thumb.

0:49 - This movie has incorporated more bad wipes than a fifth grader’s PowerPoint presentation.

0:51 - Everyone hates Kevin.

0:52 - Keanu is Kevin, by the way. I don’t think I mentioned that before. His name is Kevin. A name that simply oozes sex appeal and authority. The movie thinks it does at least, the way everyone keeps spitting and yelling it.

0:52 - “Stop. Reset.” That’s how Keanu calms an angry wife. Well moisten my nethers, what a guy.

0:52 - Charlize hit like eight levels of emotional volume in that scene. “you can Sleep On The FUCKING COUCH!”

0:53 - Keanu is going to try a triple homicide with Craig T. Nelson as the defendant.

0:55 - “We need to issue a STITEMINT.” That’s the first hint of accent Keanu has attempted to have in over 20 minutes.

0:57 - Sorry I was distracted by Medical Examiner Melinda Warner’s boobs and then her demon face and also Charlize’s not awesome new haircut. It looks like when Tiffani Amber Thiessen was Valerie on 90210.

0:59 - Now I’m distracted by Charlize’s weird accent choice. I mean, hers isn’t good, but for a quick second it was really not good.

1:00 - “Less mike a bye-bee.” Oh sexy southern words of seduction, Keanu.

1:01 - Charlize just turned into foreigny lady with the aggressive hair. BUt now her hair is down. Then back to Charlize. Then back to lady. Then foot sucking. Then Charlize! Back and forth! Who ever will he mike a bye-bee with?

1:04 - “Stop. Back up.” Keanu’s dialogue is not helping convince people he’s not made of robots.

1:04 - Craig T. Nelson has a gun and Keanu is displeased. “Hu-when the case is over, you can have it back.” His accent is getting gummier and gummier as the movie goes. It’s like someone spilled NyQuil all over it. It needs Goo-Be-Gone.

1:07 - Keanu’s mom looks exactly like Ann B. Davis. Her character’s name is even named Alice. THIS MOVIE HAS LAYERS. The devil’s Bradyvocate!

1:11 - Jeffrey Jones is doing secret filing and hiding it from the Justice Department because secrets.

1:12 - Scenes sometimes end with growls.

1:13 - Pacino just started speaking Spanish and told a man his wife was smoking “crack” with Carlos. The quotation marks were actually in the movie. Which is adorable even for 1997.

1:15 - Keanu smokes cigarettes now. That’s how you know he’s gone down the bad path.

1:16 - Now Pacino is getting a blowcino under the table. That seems like a good way to bang your head. Like, your top head. To smack it on the table. You know.

1:19 - Charlize found a Baby and the Baby is playing with Organs and that baby actor will probably be broken forever.

1:20 - “They took my ovaries, Kevin. THEY TOOK MY OVARIES!” Guys, I love this movie.

1:22 - “You fuck around and she gets money. THAT’S…a motive.” Guys, I love this movie.

1:23 - “I was boning my assistant the night my wife got shot.” Guys, I love this movie.

1:30 - Pacino is presently wearing pajamas and a matching robe. But he doesn’t have a bed because he doesn’t sleep and fucks “EVERYWAY-AHH!”

1:32 - “You sharpen the human appetite to the point where it can split atoms with its desire. You build egos the size of cathedrals. Fiber-optically connect the world to every eager impulse. Grease even the dullest dreams with these dollar-green gold-plated fantasies until every human becomes an aspiring emperor, becomes his own god. Where can you go from there? As we’re scrambling from one deal to the next, who’s got his eye on the planet? As the air thickens, the water sours, even bees’ honey takes on the metallic taste of radioactivity… and it just keeps coming, faster and faster. There’s no chance to think, to prepare; it’s buy futures, sell futures… when there is no future. We got a runaway train, boy. We got a billion Eddie Barzoons all jogging into the future. Every one of them is getting ready to fistfuck God’s ex-planet, lick their fingers clean, as they reach out toward their pristine, cybernetic keyboards to tote up their fucking billable hours. And then it hits home. You got to pay your own way, Eddie. It’s a little late in the game to buy out now. Your belly’s too full, your dick is sore, your eyes are bloodshot and you’re screaming for someone to help. But guess what — there’s no one there! You’re all alone, Eddie. You’re God’s special little creature. Maybe it’s true. Maybe God threw the dice once too often. Maybe He let us all down.”

What. Did that. Even. Mean. Guys. I love this movie.

1:33 - Craig T. Nelson’s assistant he’s banging. Worst haircut in cinema.

1:36 - Jeffrey Jones is dead now. He was killed by homeless demons after being followed by invisible people. Just like we all do.

1:37 - The courtroom is painted a really gross shiny black, like it’s a blackbox theater in Bucktown when they’re not filming. Except actually it’s granite, but it sure looked like fug paint.

1:38 - They won the case. I think. I hate when things happen off camera. I mean, I realize it’s obvious but I learned with Casey Anthony that court cases last a really fucking long time and this one seemed short.

1:40 - Charlize is in a comforter at a church telling Keanu that Pacino raped her. But he was in court with Keanu so it’s time to shake and yell at the clearly disturbed victim of something horrible. She takes off the comforter and is covered in scratches and general cray cray.

1:45 - Craig T. Nelson is stroking his 14-year-old stepdaughter and Keanu is all THE FUHHHHHHH because everyone around him is evil.

1:46 - The DOJ guy is following Keanu and telling him that Pacino is involved in money laundering, arms brokering, toxic waste and general no goodness. Pacino can also stick his finger in holy water and make it go singeylike. GUYS HE MIGHT BE THE DEVIL.

1:47 - DOJ guy gets hit by a card because of Pacino’s holy water singey touch.

1:50 - Keanu’s mom is back AND SHE HAS SECRETS TO SHARE. She was in NYC for a week back in ‘66 and she banged the shit out of a waiter and made herself a little Keanu.

1:51 - Charlize is seeing demons and is filled with voices and demonry so now it’s time to die.

1:53 - “Sir, get off her so I can help her.” Lady, her entire body just poured out of her neck hole, I don’t think there’s much fixing that.

1:54 - Pacino is Keanu’s father, guys! An Italian man and a nondescript white woman gave birth to a partially Asian Canadian man from Lebanon!

1:57 - Keanu kind of just decided that Pacino is the devil. I mean, there were plenty of reasons, but he didn’t really seem to notice them until like just this second.

1:59 - Guys. This movie is so good. I mean, it’s not good. It’s nonsense. But I LOVE IT. I want to never not be watching it. I want it to play inside my eyelids when I go nigh-nigh. I love it.

2:00 - Pacino just had to lip sync a Keanu scene and seeing particularly bad Keanu acting come out of Pacino’s face is kind of the most fascinating thing I’ve ever seen.

2:05 - “I’m a humanist. Maybe the last humanist.” SEE, DUMB PEOPLE WHO SAY THEY AREN’T FEMINISTS, THEY’RE HUMANISTS? I KNEW THEY WERE THE DEVIL.

2:06 - “She’s ovulating. Right now,” Pacino says to Keanu about Keanu’s sister while he strokes her leg. The family dynamics in this movie are something to write home about, if your home is full of devils and mole people.

2:07 - This weird sculpture painting made of people is some Ghost-level special effects.

2:08 - Yeah, Keanu, come on, t’s time to bang your sister while your dad dances around in the same room.

2:11 - Love is “biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate.” I buy that.

2:12 - OK that was sudden. Keanu shoots himself in the head, Pacino starts a giant fire, ages backwards into Keanu while the sister turns into a lizard mummy and Keanu takes about 87 minutes to fall down.

2:14 - And OH SNAP we’re back at the beginning of the movie where Keanu has to go look in the mirror about it while dealing with the case of Dawn Wiener and the masturbating teacher!

2:16 - So Keanu throws the case to do the right thing. Then a reporter says he wants to do a story on him and make him a star. THEN HE TURNS INTO PACINO BECAUSE VANITY! YOU GUYS! MESSAGES!

I’ve never been happier to watch a movie. I need several cigarettes now. Thank you for taking this journey with me. YOU’RE ALL ABSENTEE LANDLORDS.