Lead character lawyers in movies so often are portrayed as do-gooder crusaders for society that we tend to forget how manipulative their jobs often are. With the new supernatural thriller Devil’s Advocate, audiences finally get a lead character who shows exactly the true somber color that lawyers’ souls can be.

The trailer for this movie makes it look like The Firm Part II, and it starred Keanu Reeves two reasons why I expected to rip this film to pieces. So as I was watching it, I kept waiting for it to turn bad or for Reeves to demonstrate his usual droll performance.

Reeves is the successful Florida defense attorney Kevin Lomax. His string of consecutive cases won gains the attention of John Milton (Al Pacino), the head of a massive law firm based in New York City.

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Milton entices Lomax with a home, a large salary and a terrific position at his firm if Lomax will come work for him. Soon after, Lomax is headed to the Big Apple with his beautiful wife, Mary Ann (Charlize Theron), despite the objections of his mother, who feels New York City is the center of all sin.

In New York, winning becomes an obsession for Lomax so much that he refuses to acknowledge Mary Ann’s claims that their new life is not as good as it seems because the people they know from the firm are not what they claim to be.

Pacino finds his greatest role in years. He is always at his best when playing the head of sinister organizations (Godfather Part II and Scarface), but in this role he demonstrates his versatility.

And Reeves may have been born to play a defense attorney. He finally shows some acting ability giving a convincing performance as the attorney who grows a conscience.

There is so much more to the Devil’s Advocate plot that really made it work for me, but it would be a sin to reveal exactly what it is.