The Bechdel Cast - The Devil's Advocate (1997) with Sarah Marshall

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

Where do we podcast? Everywhere! Especially when it's with special guest Sarah Marshall talking about The Devil's Advocate (1997)! Check out Sarah's new podcast The Devil You Know as well as You're Wrong About and You Are Good | @yourewrongaboutpod @youaregoodpod https://app.magellan.ai/listen_links/c6jXBU See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Two rich young Americans move to the Costa Rican jungle to start over, but one of them will end up dead and the other tried for murder three times. It starts with a dream, a nature reserve and a spectacular new home. But little by little, they lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the backdoor cast, the questions asked if movies have wins.

minimum are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy's effin vast start changing it with the becdell cast behold jamie i send you out as sheep amidst the wolves what i'm the devil and your daddy me when i'm keanu and from florida well that's wild that's you're my father the devil who's like um Sir. Come on. Come on. I like the choice. Every choice in this movie is a choice. It certainly is. Choices are taking place 4,000 times a second. I thought you were going to say my favorite sin is podcast. You turn into Al Pacino and then say my favorite sin is podcast. Also, can this movie pass the Vectal Test if everyone is secretly Al Pacino? If Al Pacino is lurking beneath the skin of

We are to believe, like, 70% of the characters on screen, can it pass? Right. Well, is it that? Can Jackie and, unless she's Al Pacino? Well, I was like, okay, is it Al Pacino infiltrating everyone's bodies or are they just, like, I don't know, little minor demons? Literally. That they've sold their soul to him. Who knows?

Who knows? You know who might know? Andrew Niederman the writer who brought you PIN. What? Yes. PIN. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. And he's still alive. He's 84. He's in Palm Springs. We could get in the car right now and be like, is everyone Al Pacino.

He also, I mean, I think according to his scholarly journal Wikipedia page, The Devil's Advocate is his most famous novel that got adapted, but he also wrote Child's Play. Oh, that's more famous than The Devil's advocate unless he wrote a book called child's play that's not child's play in which case i redact and he shouldn't have done that he also wrote a book in 2003 called the baby squad i had fun on his on his on his sycophilia page oh goodness andrew needermans the baby squad anyways well then we also have tony gilroy yes of and or fame writing the screenplay i mean i hope they cut him a big old check for this we love the

Gilroy Bros. on this podcast. Indeed. Okay. Okay. We've got to get our guest in here. Just one of the greatest of all time who brought us one of the movies of all time. Yeah. I mean, should we introduce ourselves first or? I guess so. I guess so. Sorry, we haven't recorded in two weeks, so I forget how to do my job. So welcome to the Bexelcast. My name is Jamie Loftus. My name is Caitlin Durante. This is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel Tess. as a jumping off point. What is it, though? The Bechtel test is when a woman talks to Al Pacino.

Alison Bechdel came up with the Bechtoll test back in the 80s for her comic collection. Thanks to Watch Out for. Originally a queer metric that was sort of written as a one-off joke has since been applied more broadly in the mainstream and does not at any point address what if someone's secretly Al Pacino. True. However, there is a lot to talk about with this movie in general. And I was actually like, I can't say pleasantly surprised in good faith here. But I can say I was surprised at how much there is to talk about with regards to gender. I agree.

So let's get our returning guest. I'm like, is it her fifth time? Do we have to send her a jacket? Unclear. Perhaps. You know her. She's the host of You're Wrong About. You Are Good.

and the new podcast, The Devil You Know, it's Sarah Marshall. Hello, I would love a jacket or any piece of, maybe a goblet. Oh, my God. I'm putting that out there. Do you not have any goblets? I feel like you have to own a goblet. I feel like it's pink and opalite. Yeah, I do.

You're right. You've had pudding out of one of those probably, yeah. But I need a bigger one that's engraved. Yeah. And this certainly is a movie. I just am so excited to talk but first before we talk about the movie we want to hear about the podcast I'm so excited it's finally coming out and obviously it is in conversation with this documentary we're covering today yeah that's true it is a documentary this biopic yeah yes this biopic of the devil

yeah so tell us about the devil you know well I'm so happy to be here talking about it with you and bringing it out into the world like my very own Al Pacino Spawn but this is a show that I've been Jamie we've been talking about for a long time I've been working on for a long time with amazing producer Mary Steffenhagen and it's a close-up look at the Satanic Panic

it's coming out from CBC podcasts and it's the kind of thing that I've been wanting to do for such a long time where you get to kind of not just try and tell the story of how the satanic panic worked structurally and how it kind of spread across North America and then, you know, to beyond. But also to tell that story by zooming in and having conversations by individual people who were affected by it and who were caught up in it. And so our first episode opens with the story of a woman who had the gall to go to small

town Kentucky to try and teach photography to teenagers and was quite literally chased out of town based on allegations that she was looking for blue-eyed, blind children to sacrifice. And boy, does that feel like a story that could be happening this week in America. Very true. Yes. Unfortunately, I was like, so, I mean, because I've learned, I mean, really everything I know about the satanic panic has been from you and from your work before we knew. each other over the years and I'm just I'm so I'm so excited it's an opus of sorts and it's weird it's like in the five years that I've been learning about the satanic panic from you it felt like ooh well

we've moved on as a society yeah since then but now um it's back it's very much back oh yeah it's it's back like penny wise um or pin one could say or pin one could say it's pin a book which there is an ad for in one of the mass market paperback editions of Michelle remembers. Really? Yeah, a book who's kind of backstory we get into on this show too. And yeah, I feel like we, you know, look at how it's moving into the present day. But I feel like one of the things I love about studying history and that Jamie, I think, is such a big part of your work, too, is that by learning about kind of the things that people have gone through before and also what people have survived before, it's more thinkable to try and get a grasp on how to,

how to proceed and how to be helpful in the raging moral panics of today. It's true. Absolutely. It's true. Well, we're so excited to start listening. I know that our listeners and your listeners, it's kind of just a circle. Yeah. And so everyone, if you.

It's a big potluck. Exactly. So if you haven't started listening already now is the time. And if you haven't seen The Devil's Advocate, well, now is the time to pirate it on one, two, three movies, which is what I did to prepare for this episode. Same. Or to watch the TV edit on YouTube, which is, we'll take you right back to watching it on TNT in 2003, if you're like me. No way. Oh, yeah.

Okay. So to get into The Devil's Advocate in 1997, directed by Taylor Hackford. Oh, yeah, Titanic year. The Year of Titanic, yeah. He also directed an officer in a gentleman and Ray, kind of a random assortment of movies from this guy. Yeah. And he's got style.

He's got style. Apparently he's got beef with Al Pacino as well. I saw that. But in any case, 1997 movie, Sarah, what is your history with this movie? Well, I mean, watching this did take me back to A, seeing bits of it on TNT after school in, like, 2003. And then I remember watching this in full, the only other time I've done this, when I was living in Madison. So it would have been 2016. And at the time I was like, I'm going to be a lawyer.

And I was watching a lot of just lawyer movies. And I feel like this was just like one of my list of lawyer movies to watch the same way that I watched like the firm that week. And the verdict, et cetera. Yeah. It's always, it's a lot of the something. you know um the other another movie i watched during this period which i feel very nostalgic for is primal fear which is such a fun ridiculous experience and both that movie and this movie interestingly in a post oj world are about criminal defense attorneys who are shocked

shocked when they realize that their clients are guilty and it's like you know what Keanu Reeves is like, what? Lawyers generally have some suspicion that maybe they're defending a guilty person. They're not like this surprised, I wouldn't say. Someone who's considered to be a law prodigy. I was like, you don't get that far in, you know, non-public defense law with the idea that everyone who defend is innocent. Like, it just doesn't make sense.

Unless there's a cutscene where the. senior partners are like handsome boy but I sure is stupid which I would buy for this character right and so yeah I remember watching it and finding it like really over the top and odd and revealing to me this interesting idea that to defend someone's constitutional rights is evil which I think is a very interesting sort of like 90s tough on crime throughout an American pop culture but what I also remember is that towards the end you're like what is happening? And I was so delighted to return to it for this show and have the same reaction, which is that in the last half hour or so, you're like, I feel like I'm having a stroke,

but in the best way possible, at least for me. I mean, no, I had the same experience. Yeah, I really like, I don't know, Caitlin, what's your history with this movie? I had never seen it, nor did I really know anything about it. It was not really on my radar. I thought, it was that movie the devil's own which also came out in 97's what is that I thought it was meet Joe black oh okay so we're confusing it for different Brad Pitt movies we guess we America had themes in 1997 it's true but yeah so I I was like oh yeah it's that Brad Pitt Harrison Ford movie wait no it's not and I was the Brad Pitt Anthony Hopkins movie right and Brad Pitt was almost in this movie if you hear about the devil you just feel like it's got to be

Brad Pitt. Yeah, he probably would have had an easier time with the accent. Yes, because he's from Oklahoma, I think. I wonder if one of the reasons he didn't do it is because he was just in seven a couple years prior. And it also has very, like, devily, like, sin vibes. Who knows? Oh, yeah. Yeah, vanity. Got to cut your own face off. Yes. My favorite sin. But, yeah, so I didn't really know anything about this movie. and then I was like, oh, okay, the devil's advocate, that really sounds like one of those stories where the writer came up with the title first and then reverse engineered a story around it. And then it was incredibly literal, in fact. Yes. I was shocked at how literal the title ends up being. I was like, wow, this movie is engaging with its title in an unprecedented way.

I feel like the only way it would have been more literal is if he was defending the devil himself but in this case he just works for the devil. Yeah, I don't know. That's true. I mean, look, if you've already written the perfect novel, which is PIN, start phoning it in.

Why not? I'm not mad about it, you know? This movie also feels very similar in tone to the Rosemary's baby sequel, son of Rosemary, which I encourage everyone to read, which just kind of like this starts off like kind of a bad thriller

that you know where it's going. And then at the end is like, I don't know, it's like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. You're like, oh, we're literally going to hell. That's, I like, I like it. I didn't expect it. This, this movie, look, I thought I knew what was going to happen. And I was only right sometimes.

Well, tell us, Jamie, what is your relationship? with this movie. I thought it was me Joe Black. I thought I had seen it. And then I started moment one, once I saw the poster, I was like, I have not seen it. It's not me, Joe Black. Who, I think that's it. That's Brad Pitt is death, not the deathful. So, I've never seen it. Yeah. I mean, I haven't seen it, but it was on planes for a while. We, I don't know why we like owned it. We owned it. I remember because it had two video cassettes. Oh, I remember that too. vibes again.

Or that in Titanic. Yeah. Although this movie could have had two cassettes because it is simply too long. Oh my gosh. It is unforgivably long. This movie is as long as Goodfellas. Yeah.

Which takes place over like 15 years. Goodfellas, which iconically does not feel long. But that said, so I did not have any experience with this movie. You know, in terms of what our show is, why we come to this place, it fares very badly. oh yes but did i enjoy myself i sure did i want to say though i this is like we need to like put a this is the third geoffrey jones jump scare of this fiscal quarter wow on the beckdel cast he really worked his way into the nap of the 80s and 90s you know it's really vile i mean it's like satisfying to see him die a horrible death yes but outside of that i was like three times unbelievable

because we recently covered um amadeus and sleepy hollow yeah in any case did i like this fuck-ass movie i did i did i it is not pro women what is it saying kind of not very much but it's hard to know it's saying would you like to watch shall picchino do a monologue for 12 minutes and it's so hard and just ham it up the entire time that was a wild thing too we're It's like, I do think that Al Pacino is, like, it's so weird to say that a performance that is like Al Pacino shouting mostly is like him phoning it in, but it is. And that's so funny that there is someone who when he phones it in, he's screaming the whole time. It also reminds me of like the famous story about Dr. Strange Love that Kubrick was like, okay, George C, Scott,

just do one take where you're really over the top just to warm up. We won't even use it. And then he was like, hey, we're going to use it. Really? The nice thing about Al Pacino is that he doesn't need to be tricked. He'll do that performance on purpose. No, yeah. He's like, that's what I can't. Also that, I mean, all the behind the scenes with this movie is very funny and bizarre

and just like, we're just glad that Keanu found his way to the Matrix. Indeed. Eventually. But the stories around this movie are very funny. He turned down Speed 2 to be in this, I think. He turned down $11 million in Speed 2 to do this. And he took a pay cut so he could work with Al Pacino and then he did that accent. And you're like, this is wild.

But I'm not, this is not a Keanu slander podcast, but also critically. And then I'll stop. I think that this is also not a Keanu Reeves coddling podcast. That is a very, I feel like we have overcorrected. We have over corrected. All right. He's pretty good. In this movie, he's pretty good.

Well, okay. It's okay to be pretty good at your job. It really is. I'm so sick of, like, adults infantilizing other wealthy adults. I'm like, what the fuck? Like, okay, it's a fine performance. Charlie Steran is awesome. Her haircut is awful.

I love that Keanu's character who is iconically named Kevin. The devil's son is named Kevin. That's a minion. that's not a guy but in the 90s it's not an adult it's a kid in a baseball cap who just adopted airbud absolutely absolutely but yeah an adult Kevin who is just too much um but this feels ultimately like a like put together like I don't know this movie is both completely off the rails and feels like very calibrated I mean that's why I'm excited to talk about like the context that this movie came out in with you Sarah because it feels very like pulling from multiple trends in 90s

media where it's like it's got the erotic thriller elements it's got the legal thing it's got the satanic panic thing like there's just a lot happening and they're like what if we put it all in one movie it's like the trifle in friends where the recipe page has got stuck together and you have like peas and jam and the same thing and actually I do want to tell you because after I watched this I did what I frequently do, which is run to see what Roger Ebert said about it. Okay. Because he's my favorite killjoy. I just love him so much.

And he said... I hope people say that about us, too. He said, the John Grisham stuff clashed with the Exorcist stuff. Still, I enjoyed Piccino, which is basically like... I mean, yeah. Pretty solid review overall. I enjoyed Pacino. Yeah.

This movie made me want to rewatch. Constantine, which is that Keanu Reeves movie where he I actually don't remember what it's about, but there's also something about, he's like a demon hunter or something. Yeah, he's got to kill. It's one of those movies that if you're me, a boy makes he watch in 2007.

Yeah. Yes. Or T&T. This movie is, I didn't think this until you said it, Sarah, but this movie is very TNT coded. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, and also, because this

was during the time when TNT was playing Law and Order for like four hours every afternoon and I know because I was watching it whenever it was on and so it was weird when they would be playing this because they're literally I think in one of the same courtrooms that Law and Order uses

with the beautiful mural and then it's about the devil and the 90s were like such a heyday for just like legal thrillers that all have the same color palette and they frequently did I mean at least like a time to kill you have charlie's there and being like please don't defend the defendant

in the wildly rigged racist case honey we're getting snubbed at the country club or whatever you know and so it's like having this thing that felt like you you kind of feel and that's kind of it's both what does and doesn't work about it for me that you kind of feel like you know where it's going and it does feel grishamy and then it's the devil but then it's the devil and then it's the devil and And Kevin is the devil's son and Mrs. like, my God, just every character is just, everyone's doing way too much, but I, I love it. I love it when Keanu, I think that it's like either the line is misspoken, I miswatched it, or it was just a clunkily written line.

Any of these things are possible. But when Charlize Theron's character gets the haircut, she goes from curly, like, fun, blonde like bouncy curls she looks like Elizabeth Berkeley and then she does and then Al Pacino says get a brown bob like you're like what do you mean like I I did not understand the motivation behind the brown box like get your hair off your neck the neck is the borderland and seduction and it's like stop and there's you're like you know whether he's the devil or a man who tells random women what to do with their hair at parties he represents the same threat level I will say he is great

I mean it's also whatever Al Pacino there's plans to talk about with Al Pacino too but also I might have been thinking of Ashley Jed but whatever I think it stands the point stands the point stands yeah but in any case this line cracked me up because she's like

you don't like the haircut Kevin you don't like my haircut Kevin and then and then he goes no it's fine and then the next line is it's traumatic he's talking about something else but it sounds like he's calling her hair cut traumatic. Yes, I know.

And it made me laugh so much. But he is changing the subject, but the way Keanu is reading it makes it sound like he's still talking about the hair cut. Yes. It cracked me up. Also, you feel like this was like the 90s were, I feel like the 90s were so much worse in terms of an actor doing an accent for a role. And then deciding scene by scene whether he was going to do it or possibly, I don't know. I don't want to coddle Keanu. too much but you wonder if like the director is like just just don't worry about it anymore and then

they edit it together so that it comes in and out like that right oh yes well when this is like not even the most famous example of kianu doing that because wouldn't that be dracula yes yeah like that's i think his most iconically like not so great well i mean i don't know if you've ever like acted in something particularly like a film project where you're like you know not you know, whatever, it's kind of on you to keep the accent consistent. It's not an easy thing to do, but also you should do it. Yes. And on that note, let's take a quick break and then come back for the recap.

In the new podcast, Hell in Heaven, two young Americans moved to the Costa Rican jungle to start over, but one will end up dead. The other tried for murder. Not once. People went wild. Not twice. stunned. But three times. John and Anne Bender are rich and attractive and they're devoted to each other. They create a nature reserve and build a spectacular circular home high on the top of a hill. But little by little, Their dream starts to crumble, and our couple retreat from reality. They lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts.

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Hey there, I'm Kyle McLaughlin. You might know me as that guy from Twin Peaks, Sex in the City, or just the Internet's dad. I have a new podcast called What Are We Even Doing? where I embark on a noble quest to understand the brilliant chaos of youth culture. Daddy's looking good. Each week I invite someone fascinating to join me, actors, musicians, creatives, highly evolved digital life forms, and we talk about what they love. Sometimes I'll drizzle a little honey in there too from feeling sexy in the morning.

What keeps them going? And you're maybe my biggest competition on social media. Like when a kid says bra to me. And how they're navigating this high-speed roller coaster we call, reality. In Australia, you're looking out for snakes, spiders, and f***is. Right. Hey, he's no Trey McDougall. This is like the common section of my Instagram. Join me and my delightful guests every Thursday, and let's get weird together in a good way. Listen

to what are we even doing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we're back, and we will play. place a trigger warning here for many things. Kind of what, yeah, you name it. Child sexual abuse, rape, incest, suicide. This movie kind of runs the whole gambit of animal sacrifice. Yes, lots of violence and upsetting things.

Kevin. Yeah, there is a Kevin. We open in a courtroom in Gainesville, Florida, where defense attorney, Kevin Lomax, not to be confused with Kevin Le Mignon. Le Mignon. Thank you for saying that. Yes. Played by Keanu Reeves is defending a teacher who is on trial for sexually abusing his students. Heather Matarazzo, too.

Yes. And this teacher seems very guilty. But Kevin, despite having some misgivings about his client, manages to turn things around and tries to expose. the student who is testifying as a liar who made up this story about her teacher and it seems like it's going to work and that he has won the case. And so he goes out to celebrate with his wife, Marianne. His fun curly wife who does shots. Yes. She's still got curly hair. But the devil makes you get a bob. This is Charlize Theron's character, of course. And And while they're at the bar, Kevin is approached by an attorney from a law firm in New York City.

Ever heard of it? New York City. That's Babylon. That's the devil's playground. City of sin. And this firm is impressed with Kevin because he's never lost a case. And they want his help with a jury selection. Now, Kevin's mother, Alice, doesn't think this is a good. good idea. She's super religious and she thinks that New York is full of godless heathens.

But Kevin and his wife, Marianne, go to New York anyway and he does a good job with the jury selection. So John Milton, okay, Paradise Lost much. Very subtle. Played by Al Pacino. Can I be vulnerable and say I've never read Paradise Lost? Oh, no. God. How many people have, you know? Okay. I'm very proud of anyone who's managed it, but okay. Yeah. No, I've never read that. I have never read Dante's Inferno. Everything I know about Dante's Inferno is from Lemony's Snicket books. That was pretty good. You know what? You want to know what I just learned is that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, his wife, died when her dress caught fire, and she burned to a crisp, which happened to a lot of women in the mid-19th century because the fashion was for

women to wear very, very flammable clothing. And so they did because, you know. That feels like a trick. That feels like a trick. They're like, no, no, just wear layers of very, very flammable cotton and air. It'll be great. And so after that, he didn't really write much or any new poetry. And he devoted much of the rest of his life to translating the Divine Comedy, which I just think is like such a relatable grief thing to do. You're like, nobody talk to me. I'm translating the Divine Comedy from Italian. It's going to take a while.

I'm fine. Everything's fine in here. I kind of like, yeah, that's both obviously, like, that is such a traumatic thing. And also it's kind of dramatic of him to be like, oh, no, leave me alone. Yeah. You know, I love it.

Yeah, we should really bring back more dramatic grieving of that nature. We should have PSAs about how increasingly young men are translating epic Italian poems to deal with their emotions. And that's why we need to increase mental health access. It's the male, it's the male translation epidemic. Everyone's talking about it. It's really bad. If they think everyone else is doing it, they're going to start translating poems. I swear to God.

It's true. This is how, this is, this is our attempt to reverse the narrative. Yeah. They don't want you to translate classic Italian poems, boys. It's the last thing they want you to do. It's the final rebellion. In any case. So anyway.

John Milton, played by Al Pacino, is one of the senior partners at this law firm. And definitely not the devil or anything. Tanini-O-Ne-O-N-E-O. And he hires Kevin to work at the firm. Okay, this does actually, now that we're talking about Kevin the Minion, this does follow minion logic because Kevin the Minion, no, it does. Minion rules, Minion serves the most evil master. What is Kevin doing?

Wow. This is kind of like a Kevin thing. Kevin is a minion. He is a minion. And that's why his accent is so inconsistent. Yeah. Yeah, his first language is minionese. That's the,

which means he is, he can speak just as many languages as the devil. Well, and Christabella andrioli. Iconic Connie Nielsen character, Christabella andrioli. Do you like it on top?

You're like, shut up. Every time someone speaks in this movie, my reaction is, shut up. Anyways. So John Milton gives Kevin a job, as well as this huge, beautiful apartment in Manhattan. Then Kevin meets his colleagues, including this guy named Eddie Barzune. This is the Jeffrey Jones character. And Cristabella andrioli, that's the Connie Nielsen character.

Perfect. And like many women, professional women characters of, the late 20th century we know she's really good at her job but don't expect to see her doing it and not expect it to become plot relevant she's mainly there to be naked eventually yes because every time kevin looks at her he goes hubba hubba awuga it's true it's true and then his heart bursts out of his chest and yeah he goes full wolf eyes um god we're gonna when when we get to the scene where she do you like it on top of your profession, I mean. You're like, oh, my lord. Yeah. Tony Gilroy. What are you doing? Sir. Okay. So Kevin's first assignment is the Moyez case where this guy named Philippe Moez, played by Delroy Lindo. Yes. One of my favorite character actors ever. Indeed. He is arrested for killing a goat in his basement. And it seems like there's no way to wear. in this case. But Kevin

manages to win by saying that Moyez killed a goat as a religious practice which he has the constitutional right to observe. Okay, here's my question with the whole Delroy Lindo thing, because this movie does extremely poorly on race, as

we'll talk about. Yes. But I was like genuinely, I was like, okay, so once you find out Al Pacino's the devil, are we to believe that Keanu Reeve should not have fought that religious freedom? case. I was very confused. Let's talk about it later because I, like, I want to get into it with that plotline that could

have been absolutely cut from the movie and perhaps should have been because it would have cut like 20 minutes out of the runtime, which is desperately needed for this movie. Yes. Ultimately, it's like I'm always happy to see Delroy Lindo, but that was a one of the many baffling moments in the movie. Truly. Yeah. But the point. is that Kevin wins this unwinnable case. And so John Milton is like, wow, Kevin, good job. You rock

and you rule. Now, meanwhile, at home, Marianne has been hanging out with her neighbor, Jackie, played by Tamara Tooney, who is also married to one of the lawyers at the firm. I think that guy's name is Lehman. It is played by Ruben Santiago Hudson, who is an actor and a writer. He wrote the adaptation of Mar Rainey's Black Bottom. Oh, no kidding. Oh, wow. He's just a very, yeah, he's a very versatile guy. Anyways. Which I think my friend Patrick

was in as an extra. Really? Yeah, as a racist Irish man. Oh, Pittsburgh. There you go. Matt tracks. Well, shout out, Patrick. So Marianne is hanging out with Jackie, who is helping Marianne decorate her new apartment because

women be doing woman things like decorating and then Kevin and Marianne go to this big party in the building and this is where Marianne meets John Milton and he's like wow you're beautiful but your hair well it looks like shit and you should change everything about it yeah the whole the whole neck thing right exactly meanwhile Kevin is flirting with Christabella and she's flirting right back back. Bushemi tells this. You can't. Oh, my God. Do you like it on top, Kevin? And then he's like, excuse me. Is your wife a jealous woman, Kevin? I better get out of here. You're like, just the most written by man, woman ever. But it felt like for me, it transcended and became camp. Do you

like it on top, Kevin? This is an extremely campy movie. It's taking itself very seriously, but the camp is seeping through the cracks. True. I mean, that's the thing about the devil, right? Is that like he can't really be dead serious about devil stuff. Right. The devil is camp. Yeah, he is a campy little guy.

Look at that outfit for a start. What is that pitchwork for? It's for poking people in the butt. It's true. He's a kinky little guy. This movie made me think of Angel Heart, which is like, I don't know, to me a similarly campy devil movie where it's like supposed to be a twist that it's the devil but you're like this has clearly been the devil the entire time and like you know with like great style is directed by

ellen parker but where like if you had to come up with the point of it you would have no idea what to say yeah um and they both have like over the top dramatic endings at opposite ends of the 12 year old boy spectrum which i'm excited to talk about when we get there okay yeah because ultimately the i mean And as close, it's trying to say something about free will, but I think it is making a very simple and should be, you know, followed moral, which is do not legally defend a teacher who is. Yeah, like a child sex abuser. And you're like, well, all right, got it.

I agree. And, you know, for most people who don't have that job in the audience, you're like, already not doing that. I love it. Yeah, that's true. You're like, I did it. And then if that is your job, you have to get out a postcard and write to whatever studio made this. That's true.

Okay, so they're at this party and then eventually Milton summons Kevin and then a couple of the other attorneys to his penthouse apartment, which is just this like big room. There's no bedroom. There's no bed. There's no kitchen. He's an anti-Samantha Jones. She's all bedroom. He's no bedroom. I think this is a later.

in the same space but that whole like where does he sleep we don't know where does he fuck everywhere you're like no that is this scene oh it is okay that is yeah love it yeah it's awesome it's also edward cullen coded except edward colin fucks nowhere famously that's true his whole thing is i want that i want that same line read from robert patting where does he fuck nowhere Oh, that's kind of the accent he's doing in Mickey 17, so I feel like he could pull it off. That is. Yeah, he can do it. Yeah, yeah.

In any case, Milton gives Kevin a new case to work on, this big-time real estate developer named Alexander Cullen. Okay. Okay. Cullen. See? Just think of the devil. Alexander Cullen, unfortunately, the Alexander Cullen penthouse is Donald Trump's penhouse. It really is. Oh, no. Yeah. Except it's like, what if Donald Trump was the dad from

Poltergeist? And you're like, at this point, I'll take it. Yeah. Also, Donald Trump's name is invoked in this movie at some point where they're at a party and someone says Donald Trump was supposed to be here, but he had a business emergency. And you're like, oh, my God. I mean, I'm sure that that was like the condition for using the apartment or something. Like, you need to bring me up in a way that makes, oh, it's just anyways. I imply that I have business emergencies. and not going to Sex Offender Island emergencies. Yeah.

Somehow our fascist president does weasel his way into this movie that at least has the decency to be about the devil. Yeah. I mean, not to jump ahead of ourselves, but this movie does imply something about the Craigteen Elson character that you kind of feel like people in the know probably knew about Trump in the 90s, too. Interesting.

Perhaps. Yeah. I believe it. We'll clarify that shortly, but what we know about Alexander Cullen now, is that he has been charged with murdering three people including his wife

and it's going to be this big very public case but Kevin is up to the challenge go Kevin lead counsel Kevin I feel fine just honestly

you need to change your name like I am you can be the best lure in the world I'm not I'm not working with Kevin come on not for a murder trial My life is on the line. Leave Kevin out of it. So then Kevin meets with this Alexander Cullen, played by Craig T. Nelson.

And what's his thing again? I know that he has like horrible politics. I know that he's like not a good person. I like have a lot. It's hard to keep track. Rick T. Nelson, I know very little about. Yeah, me too. I miss Craig T. Nelson class.

I think we might have brought him up on the podcast before. I don't remember. But any, I think he's, he's not a great guy. Anyway, he's not thrilled with Kevin taking the case, but he doesn't have much of a choice. Meanwhile, Marianne, who now has a completely different haircut and hair color, goes shopping with her friend Jackie. And then this weird thing happens where Jackie is like, look at my titties. Are they fake? Are they real?

Touch them. Feel them. And then Marianne sees Jackie's face and body brief. transform into something that looks demonic. It looks like bad CGI. There's nothing more satanic than girls touching each other's boobs

famously. Like right away, you're like, got it. Got it. I see. It's the Go Ask Alice School of Satanism. Craig T. Nelson, from what I can tell, is your sort of garden variety, like, right-leaning libertarian dork-ass loser.

But I do this, his Wikipedia page is fascinating because I've noticed this has like an editorial thing. I'm like, I'm sure it's like his reps doing it or something. But in the personal life section, whenever someone is truly like a piece of shit, people will edit it to end it on something innocuous in the hopes that you're scanning. Because it's like he endorsed John McCain. He was a regular guest on Glenn Beck.

And then it ends on Nelson is also a lifelong Green Bay Packers fan. And you're like, you can't fool me. I saw Glenn Beck. Like, whatever. But you're supposed to go about your day and the rest of your life thinking, Craig T. Nelson, go, Pat, go. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so then after Marianne witnesses this really bizarre thing with her friend Jackie,

shopping is stressful, you know. Yes, I also turn into a demon when I shop. Oh, yeah, if a three-way mirror is present, absolutely. Indeed. And my hot friends are undressing in front of me and I'm feeling insecure about my Bob. Mm-hmm. Come on.

So she freaks out and she tells Kevin that things are weird and that actually she hates this apartment and she doesn't like that he's never home anymore because he's so busy working all the time. And Kevin does not take this well. He's furious. He's screaming at her. But then she starts crying so he consoles her and it gets horny. He says, let's make a baby.

Yeah. The line read there is hilarious. They start fucking on the floor. But as they're having sex, he keeps seeing Christabella instead of Marianne. And Marianne can tell something is wrong and that he's not fully present. Then we cut away. Kevin's mother, Alice, comes into town for a visit. And they run into Milton in the elevator.

And she seems very uncomfortable around Milton. Is it because he's the devil? I don't know. Or is it because they had a thing back in the day? We'll find out. But another weird thing happens on the subway where Milton and Kevin are riding the subway for some reason. I don't know. They have so much money.

Why aren't they taking like private cars? Because he's the devil and he likes to be underground. Yes. Well, that is. I read in the, there was a Joel Schumacher version of this movie which was supposed to happen, which actually, oh my God, I can't believe it didn't, right? There's already a lot of nipples in this movie, but here's the thing. There could have been more. There could have been more. But in the Jill Schumacher version, I think that that's probably left over because the Jill Schumacher version is, it's like Dante's six circles of hell are going deeper and deeper into the subway system, which is so cute. Which is a cool, like, visual idea. But I think that, like, what happened, that didn't happen. And then there's just a random scene where these, like, wealthy characters who are classists are on the subway for some reason.

I wonder how much of Joe Schumacher's the devil's advocate ended up in Batman and Robin. Oh. Never know. Makes you think. A heartbeat to the weirdest man ever. But anyway, this strange thing happens on the subway where Milton tells this man that his girlfriend is currently cheating on him and he seems to know a bunch of details almost as if Milton is omniscient, almost like he's the devil.

This is why America's southern lawyer should learn Spanish to save him some time on this one. Yes. Also, okay, and I can't claim to be an expert or even proficient in Spanish, but I know enough to know that Al Pacino was not doing a very good job. and it seems like he's speaking Spanish with an Italian accent because I think Al Pacino does know Italian. Yeah, yeah. The degree to which he is phoning it in at volume 1,000 is that's interesting.

Because I was going to ask you, I was like, is it even close? It's pretty rough. And it's clear because it keeps cutting away from him. And so you're not actually seeing him speaking it. So I think a lot of it is ADR. And I think lines were probably like fed to him. one sentence at a time and he's still blowing it but there's a lot of there's a lot of ADR in this movie my favorite ADR comes from it's misogynous ADR it's when they move into the three

bedroom apartment and they add the line um three bedrooms you know what that means a be me like you don't see her mouth move that whole time I was like they absolutely added that like they're like, oh no, we never established that this character's only goal in life is to have Keanu Reeves' baby no matter how much he hates her. You know what that means? A baby.

Seamless. Yeah, no, no. Perfect. And then more weird things continue to happen. At home, Marianne sees, and speaking of babies, she sees a random baby in the apartment. And takes it in stride.

Takes it really in stride. She says, hi baby i have that dream all the time honestly baby where's your mummy you're like oh she is cool as a cucumber about it until she sees what the baby is playing with which are entrails and then she's like oh no and then it seems like maybe marianne is having a miscarriage we don't know if it was a dream or if it was real marianne feels like she's losing her grip on reality and again kevin is not handling this well he's not listening to her he is dismissing her he's constantly gaslighting her He's doing about as well as any husband named Kevin. And it's a weird Kiano performance. So, in my opinion, the, like, the reactions feel weird and outsized even for what he's doing, where it's like, you're like, too loud, too loud. What's going on?

Yes. I love this movie. It sucks. I keep imagining him saying to Charlize at some point, like, honey, let's go to Los Angeles and I can infiltrate surf crime communities. Yeah, I guess this was after point break, right? Yeah, but you know, it's all a big soup in my head. Yeah, like his like post-speed but pre-Matrix era.

Yeah, there's a couple rough ones. Yeah, because he is the kind of actor where you feel like people were trying to figure out what roles he made sense in and this like, I don't know, I feel like Tom Cruise would make more sense in this role. that recommending more Tom Cruise movies is a loaded thing to say. But, I mean, it's got the right Catholic intensity. You're absolutely right. Like, I love Keanu, but I think he is more often than not horribly miscast. He's almost never put in the right role. And, you know, I'm not unhappy to see it necessarily.

But especially in, like, the 90s where it's like they just hadn't quite figured out where he, because he's great in the right role. And then in the wrong role And he always fully commits too Which I feel like unfortunately It kind of works against him sometimes Because he's fully committing to like A weird choice

Right because you're like you can tell how hard he's trying But is maybe not doing a very good job sometimes A la his performance in Dracula I didn't think that he was Because I was reading they're like This is a bad Keanu performance I'm like I didn't think it was like bad It just didn't think it was good

It's not right It's just not right for him Yeah It's also like I feel like it's not a protagonist role that you really have that much to do with? Because like isn't he just mostly reacting to stuff?

Yeah. It's like I mean like Al Pacino has like I mean Al Pacino is not miscast in this role even though apparently he turned down this role three different times because he was like it's too like trite which he's right about but I just

I guess the he's he was like this is too obvious and too trite which makes sense because he a really good actor and that is true but I guess they just said the right number and he's like all right I'll do it the theme of the movie everywhere oh goodness okay so Kevin meanwhile is working on this murder case with that Cullen guy who says he has an alibi which is that he's been having an affair with his assistant and he was with her the night the murders happened but Milton is is considering taking Kevin off of this case because he sees how it's affecting Kevin and Marianne's marriage. But Kevin is like, no, I can have it all. It's a test. It's a test and he passes. And he passes and he fails. He also says. I don't know. It's for Marianne, he fails. But I guess

I interpreted that as like the devil's like giving him a chance to do the right thing. And then he's like, no, I won't. Yeah. Yeah, it's the whole free will. Yeah. semi-theme. Is it a theme or is it something people mention a lot? It's, I don't know. I have one of those. The free will thing towards the end.

Yeah, again, one of the many like weirdly executed kind of iconic, can't be things this movie does is like state the intended theme at the very end of the movie. So loudly. How do you like them free wills? You're like, oh, I guess I do always

like that. Yeah. It is fun. You're like, okay. So this movie. movie is also insecure about what it's doing for sure then something happens with the Eddie Barzoon character where what a name you know yeah he thinks Kevin is trying to take his job and he's been doing some shady stuff and shredding a lot of documents shredding yes not point break kind of

shredding unfortunately he's getting yeah he's getting the shredding sweats it feels like he's got a lot of refuge to get through. Yes. And because of all of that question mark, Milton seems to send out some demons to kill Eddie Barzune. This guy's cleverly as joggers, which, you know, what's the difference, frankly? First as joggers, but then they kind of transform. But then an unhoused person in a way that's both like... I lessen behind that one. Yeah. Yeah, we can talk more about that. But either way, Barzun dies, which Marianne sees from her window and she has a breakdown. So Kevin rushes to be with her, but not before he wins the Cullen case. Don't you worry because he never loses. And he goes to be with Marianne who tells

Kevin that Milton came into their home and raped her. And Kevin's like, I don't believe you. That's impossible because I was with him all day. So Kevin takes Marianne to the hospital for like psychiatric intervention. He basically like has her committed. He gives her the full Virginia Madsen and Candyman treatment where you get strapped to a table and they wheel you away and your useless husband is like goodbye, honey, I'm going to give you a little kiss. Okay, goodbye. Yeah. And then she's saying we have blood money on our hands all the times that you won cases defending guilty clients we are reaping the consequences of that now and Kevin eventually realizes she's right but it also he has to see a whole bunch of other things to fully believe it such as and I was unclear exactly what was

happening here but I think the implication is that he sees Cullen with Cullen She's stepdaughter who he has been sexually abusing. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. I missed that. It's super unclear. Oh, okay.

Because we don't really see, we don't get like a good look really at any point of the stepdaughter. But then they're together at Jeffrey Jones's funeral, which is like the ideal place for plot development. And yeah, because there's this whole thing where Craig T. Nelson has been making this big show about like, I just care about my stepdaughter. I'm not allowed to see my stepdaughter anymore. And these murder charges are bogus.

And my big secret is that I was having an affair with another consenting adult. Yeah, that's the ticket. And I think it's that thing, again, of like, Cano Reeves being like, wow, maybe I am defending an innocent client at this murder trial, which again is like, you're not going to make a living in criminal defense if you insist on having innocent clients. Right. You can, I feel like it makes more sense to focus on the sense of betrayal of like, oh, I thought I had a good understanding of who this person was morally. And then it turns out that I completely misjudged them. And I feel like an idiot. And like I didn't understand the terms of the bargain that I was making.

Because then he gets acquitted and we see him like inappropriately touching his stepdaughter's back at Jeffrey Jones's funeral appropriately. just right just can't even get into it yeah yeah that i that hadn't even really like connected for me but you're totally right of like he this character is not convincingly competent like you don't believe he's the best lawyer and he got the football scholarship to law school just like in point break well it's like it helps his character development of like becoming a bad person if he knows and doesn't care right like and it's not like the movie the way that the movie wants him to be likable is like executed

so weirdly because clearly the movie doesn't care if we think he's a good partner or not he's never not screaming at Charlize so you're just like it's just weird yeah right it feels like they wrote all the other characters and they just

had him sort of do what he had to do to make the scenes make sense but yeah it's like he has to start off as someone who has no idea how to do his job properly in order to continue to be surprised you know because like yeah another Keanu line read

that's going to be rattling around my head for years is when he was again his character who's a piece of shit one might say the whole movie yeah is is yelling at Craig T. Nelson's secretary says

you've been polishing his knob for months and you don't know if he has foreskin I was like I like don't say don't yell a foreskin at a lady don't say that Even if you're prepping a witness, write it on an index card and slide it across the table. Like, it's a really high salary or something.

That was just, like, such an unpleasant line to hear wild writing choices. I also think that in the supernatural vein, this movie and Liar, Liar, I think, are both inspired by the O.J. Simpson trial. It's one of my analyses. Right? Because like we have this moment of like America feeling like a bit scandalized at criminal law and sort of what is maybe legally permissible but not morally permissible when you're mounting a defense and that this movie and liar liar and primal fear as I've mentioned before but liar liar is a more fun comparison or about like what if you were a really good defense lawyer but then something supernatural happened and it's also about appreciating. your partner more, I guess. Yeah. Wow. I've never seen Liar Liar somehow. It's very fun. It's Jim Carrey is a lawyer. He's having fun. I like Jim Carrey.

I realize that not everyone can handle. I think I would like it. Uncut Carrey. Yeah, I think so. It's fun. It's also got like, I know I've made this joke somewhere before, but who cares? It's like one of those like light 90s comedies that just revealing what the economy was like back then has like a beautiful orchestral score that makes me imagine like a cornet player in the bathroom like honey honey i'm learning my part for liar liar honey i've seen that movie probably 20 times between the ages of like 11 and 12 and then never again so i bet you could recite it like a mass if you saw it again yeah i bet i bet yeah we should do we should do like a maybe that's a patreon theme or something like a lawyer brewery because it is interesting like what what are I mean I know

Sarah that's like so much of what your show is about but like what are you know pop culture perception of justice is depending on the given moment and yeah like this it feels almost like weird and polyana is for what this movie suggests which is that the devil would have to intervene for a lawyer to act in bad faith which is like what do you mean yeah and it's also it's interesting because it's like there are so many moments where it flirts with coherence right and like this firm reminds me of like wolfram and heart from angel where they're like a law firm that very unsettly like we learn is you know up to all kinds of like shady very high level international stuff that's all about like perpetuating wars and you know keeping the working class

down and doing like the real big corporate evil that I think is very different than just like being any defense lawyer protecting the rights of individuals in a trial setting. But it's like, but everyone hates successful criminal defense lawyers so much in 1997 that the two kind of get like steamrolled together at a certain point. Yeah. Right. Well, because on Kevin's journey of realizing that maybe. Not Kevin's journey.

Maybe. Eat pray Kevin. We have to talk about Kevin. or whatever that movie's called. We literally have to talk about Kevin. Wow. Wow. Oh, no.

It's coming to this. He's seeing all of this evidence that maybe the law firm he works for is demonic because then some like, I don't know if this is like an attorney general or something, but he goes up to Kevin and he's like, by the way, your law firm is tied up in arms dealing and chemical weapons and money laundering and all this stuff. And so rather than Kevin, you know, just. just listening to his wife and believing her, he's like, well, now I have a sneaking suspicion that maybe where I work is evil.

A guy from the Justice Department or whatever came and bothered me. Yeah, he set me straight, and so now I believe it. Which I do think is how a lot of men behave, but it makes it harder to believe the character has grown and changed because of how late in the movie that happened. For sure. Because he never actually believes his wife. No. He just, he gets the information elsewhere.

And he also iconically barely reacts when he's like, no, I mean, he reacts when she dies, but then it sort of is like. For two seconds. Anyways. Anyways. Whoa, that was weird. He's like, well, I got to be back in court in 20. So I'll react later.

In some ways, it ends up working out for my schedule. You're like, what? Well, okay, so what happens next is that? At the hospital, Marianne takes her own life. And while that's happening, Kevin's mother, who's back in town, reveals this big secret that she has met John Milton many years before. And actually, he's Kevin's father. That twist was, first of all, added.

That twist is not in the source material. Like, most of the ending is added for the movie. But I also... That's interesting. As goofy as it is, I was sort of like, wait. Kevin's mom is fucking and she's fucking the devil. Kevin's mom had sex with the devil. I feel like we're speeding past that part.

Like, how was it? I wanted a cutaway. I wanted a cutaway. With the Marvellettes playing in the background. Well, it's also not super clear how consensual that interaction might have been. For my own sanity, I would like to think that it was. But yeah, that's a very good point. I'm going to, I'm going to, also for this.

sake of my own brain to say that it was consensual because then it can still be funny. But also, I mean, that is like how, and again, you're like, okay, he's the devil. But how freely sexual assault and rape is just like tossed around as a plot point in this movie. You're just like, yeah. Yeah. And it's like the 90s model of ladies man where it's like, well, he was constantly surrounded by vulnerable young women who he was taking advantage of. So ladies man. And it's like, That's like the opposite of that. It's like a man who's the enemy of all ladies. Yes.

Unlike Keanu Reeves, who is a real ladies man. The ladies love him. It's true. He's a fine wine. So Kevin learns that John Milton is his father. He's also piecing together that Milton is the devil. So he goes to confront Milton. He's going through a lot.

Again, it's a very funny reaction from Kianu where he's like, ugh, what? Like, he seems like kind of like more annoyed than shocked where he's like, stop, don't tell me this. Today, on the day of my wife's tragic passing, stop. Like, it's so weird. Yeah, and so he goes to Milton and his suspicions that Milton is the devil are confirmed, which means that Kevin is half devil or something. Yeah, like Spock. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now Kevin has to reconcile his past choices and behavior because Kevin has acted of his own free will. Milton explains that as of the devil, he simply sets the stage, but he doesn't make anyone do anything. So Kevin making a shitload of money defending sex criminals, and murderers and Kevin neglecting his wife

all of that was his own doing and Kevin has to like sort through that which I think is it in some ways you could view that as the twist of the movie being that men are accountable for their actions and he's like what no

and that is like pretty good I think that's as coherent as this thing gets and I do like that yeah yeah it's fun and then Christabella shows up She is Kevin's half-sister because Milton is also her father. They also added this for the movie and you're like, was that necessary? They're like, we haven't had enough non-assault-related nudity.

And let's just throw incest into the conversation while we're at it. Precisely. Yeah, this is the point where if you're editing it down for TNT, I do not feel jealous of your job right now. The movie just abruptly stops. We don't know what to do. We don't know what to do. But it's not found. Right.

Because after Christabella shows up, Milton wants Kevin to ingregnate her so as to conceive the Antichrist. But also as like the children of the devil, aren't they the Antichrist? And do they come together to make a whole Antichrist or is it an anti-anichrist? Is it an antipasto? It's very confusing. Yeah, do they cancel each other out? If they have sex and have a baby, is it just the second coming of Christ? yeah what if they accidentally make jesus yeah i was also a little unclear on why it was so urgent to do it right at that moment

not that that is like the biggest even in the top 10 issues going on in this scene but i was like just okay okay so it is um all of these disgusting horrible things but couldn't it be next week like it's all timed with the political situation in hong kong you know it's well he also i i the just whatever the ham-fistedness of the end which which is, I like it, is super campy and goofy. But when he's like, the 20th century, the devil was on fire in the 20th century, like, yeah, whatever, okay, great. Sure. I would like, I think you should do a Patreon feature that's just you reciting Al Pacino's monologues from the end of this movie. He talks so much in this last scene.

He will not shut up. I like it. He needs a PowerPoint, really. He kind of is giving a TED talk at the end about the devil's behavior throughout the 20th century. You're like, what? Which brings me to my conclusion, you have to have sex with your sister right now to conceive the antichrist. Go. And Kevin is acting like he's about to do that, but instead he shoots himself.

Because the devil is amnicious but not telepathic, evidently, or maybe it doesn't work on your own kids. if they had made this into a show. We would have gotten more lore. It would have been fun, but oh well. And the very flimsy, because it's like, it feels like the movie just has to end at this point because there's been too many plot points introduced. They're like, we got to stop, we got to stop. But Kianu being like, justifying, willingly participating in incestual assault.

He's like, well, I did have a big crush on you. No, but he's about to do it because he had a crush on her at work. You're just like Yeah But he stops and he shoots himself Which makes Milton burst into flames And which makes Cristabello shrivel up and die Yeah she turns into a piece of driftwood I think

That's pretty fun Yeah that's what happens to women who aren't having sex with Keanu Reeves in this city That actually happens if he stopped being sexually active for a full 20 minutes He just start desiccating So they seem to to die or at least Christabella does but Kevin doesn't die despite the gunshot wound to his

head. Instead he's transported back to the scene at the beginning of the movie where he's defending that teacher who abuses his students and he's like oh my God I have a second chance I can redeem myself so he quits the case

mid-trial. Which you're not supposed to do. You're not supposed to do that and all no but the the optics of because if this was some weird like fantasy he had at the urinal or whatever like it sort of feels like that but then he goes back into this very serious trial this trial where a child has been assaulted and he started making out with his wife I was like oh my god Kevin it's a very good point and also like what's going to happen like is it going to be a mistrial and then your you know child plaintiff

has to go through all this again like use your head piano I realize you can't as this character, but isn't it just wonderful that the ending of this movie is, it was all a dreamer, was it? It is a, it's the only thing this movie hasn't done at this point, that you're like, sure. You're like, oh, okay, we're doing it. Is that Al Pacino is, uh, the vanities, my favorite shit? You're like, what the fuck? He's playing a journalist, the other most evil profession, according to the 90s. Yeah, that's true.

That's true. Because the way the movie ends is this minor journalist character who we've seen before, but only at the very beginning at the very end, he transforms into Al Pacino, looks directly at the camera, says, ah, yeah, vanity, my favorite's in. And then he like winks and then cut to black. I love it. And then I think honestly, this movie that has no restraint, I was really impressed that they I had the restraint to spend a million dollars on paint it black instead of sympathy for the devil.

I thought that that was probably really hard for them to not use sympathy for the devil in this movie every single time Al Pacino was on screen. And also sympathy for the devil had just been used in Legion or whatever the Denzel Washington movie is. So maybe it was feeling like overplayed. So it does end kind of Judy Dungeon cat style at the end of the day. have just heard a tale of cats like that's sort of the vibe about it is like that i would i would watch i'm actually watching this on a double bill with cats like you would emerge no longer able to do math you know you would really be like i can't read i don't remember where i'm from fallen is the dunzel washington movie i'm thinking of and that came out in 1998 so that could

be your demonic Rolling Stones double feature as well. I did not know. I also feel like Scorsese uses a needle drop with that song in like 400 of his movies. Yeah. Nobody loves the Rolling Stones like Scorsese loves the Rolling Stones. I'm convinced. That's true. And that's why he is father canon.

And spoilers for the ending of Angel Heart, where by the way, De Niro is playing the devil but doing a Scorsese impression in order to play the devil. but it's like, what if Scorsese had long nails and it was always eating eggs? It's like, yeah, what if, show me. I'm in. And then it ends. Spoilers for Angel Heart, which is a very strange movie. You never heard of it.

Well, it ends with Mickey Rourke realizing that he's been had and that he just has to go to hell now. And he just goes to hell and that's the end. And you're like, wow, I don't, I mean, I didn't really like that character, but I don't really feel like he deserves to go to hell. No, we're ending in hell. okay that's the end of the movie and there's just like there's something to me that's so revealing about like these two endings where it's like you tangle with the devil you don't really get the chance to make choices he does a lot of speeches and then at the end you either suffer all consequences or no consequences yeah because it feels like it was never really about what you did it's just about the sort of like feeling and masculinity of being damned i don't know right well i guess if you're looking at the movie like it was all a dream a vision of what his life could have been had he, you know, sold out. And he continued to do the job he does. Yeah.

Right. Or is it that all of those events did happen and then he just gets like the biggest magic do-over. Chance at redemption ever. Right. Which like he did not deserve. What has he done to earn any kind of redemption? Absolutely nothing.

The moral of this movie is if you die of suicide, you get a do-over, which is not. not really what we needed to be telling people. And also he transforms into Jesus for a second. Yeah. No, I know. God, I keep missing. Jesus, but with wings. So like an angel?

You can't take your eyes off this movie for a second. It's like a toddler. No, some shit's going to happen. It's very bizarre. Well, let's take a quick break. And then we will come back to discuss. In the new podcast, Hell in Heaven, two young Americans moved to the Costa Rican jungle to start over. But one will end up dead, the other tried for murder.

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on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, I'm Kyle McLaughlin. You might know me as that guy from Twin Peaks, Sex in the City, or just the Internet's dad. I have a new podcast called What Are We Even Doing, where I embark on a noble quest to understand the brilliant chaos of youth culture. Daddy's looking good. Each week, I invite someone fascinating to join me, actors, musicians, creatives, Highly evolved digital life forms, and we talk about what they love.

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When you start weaponizing outer space, things can potentially go really wrong. Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now because it is. But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to Here We Go Again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Sarah, I would love to, if you're down, start this discussion. with a little understanding of like the historical context

that this movie was coming out into. What was the, I know we've sort of been like talking around this for much of the episode, but like what was the state of satanic media in the late 90s? Oh, wow. Yeah. I mean, I feel like we had stuff and we can see it in this movie kind of referencing the millennium approaching and asking this question of like what kind of a millennium are we going to have, which is very interesting to try and think back to in a pre-9-11 context

because it turned out that the kind of millennium the United States was going to have at least so far would have the tone set for us by turning an act of terrorism and tragedy into an opportunity to destabilize an entire region while searching for profit and claiming to be getting revenge while actually doing something unrelated and relying on the average Americans' misunderstandings about geography in order to, you know, make a lot of money for Halliburton. So it feels like, interestingly,

the kind of millennium that we started off with with our decision to start a war in the Middle East was one where we got to do anything we wanted by playing the victim. And I think that that's, there's kind of an interesting it's just interesting to see this movie I think partly because it feels like a combination of like

these ideas that we had that I think America has historically used about Satan where I think Satan is kind of the great American scapegoat where like if you're claiming to eradicate Satan you can behave pretty horribly but if you're claiming to be on the right side of a holy war then whatever you do is pretty much justified including genocide if you're talking about

the way that North America was colonized. And then the very, like, robust 90s genre of the courtroom drama, which I think feels itself to be this very rational, academic kind of mode of storytelling that helps make people feel smarter for consuming, or at least I think that's part of the basis for the appeal, but really is able to tell these highly emotional stories that allow Americans to feel that the Constitution is often this annoying thing that gets in the way of, punishing defendants a little bit too freely because it's politically popular and it's fun to be vindictive fuck okay Sarah Sarah you're so smart and also we you know Starbucks has like upholster chairs at this time

it's just like a wild time to be alive I guess I want I want to impress you guys you're so smart I was, no, I mean, this is, that, that's like so much to think about, but I, I agree. Like, because I, what I was struggling with, I guess, was not really putting myself in the audience for this, but, like, trying to understand what did the movie want you to walk away thinking, which I think is, that's hard to know, mostly a craft issue that we don't know. But I'm curious, I just, I'm like, I was really kind of racking my brain. And that's why I was looking at like adaptation changes and stuff like that to be like, what did this very successful movie want us to leave thinking about? And I guess what? I could not figure it up. We still don't know. I have similar questions not only regarding the movie overall, the overall narrative and themes, but also, as they relate to how we're supposed to view Marianne as a character, how we are supposed to be perceiving her, and whether or not we are supposed to be empathizing with her or what exactly?

My view is that, well, I'll let me know be to think, because I feel like, I don't know, she's not a well-written character, right? But she's better written than I thought she would be, in that at least for a good chunk of the movie, the things she does have narrative consequence, which most movie wives, that is just not the case. I felt like we started by empathizing with her and then we end by pitying her, which is like I thought like a very unpleasant turn of events.

That plus I, well, because like she starts out, especially upon them moving to New York and Kevin accepting this job and they move into this big beautiful apartment and now she's tasked because she's the wife who has given. up her job. I think her job in Florida was, she was selling repossessed cars or something. Yeah, I mean, it was like. She was doing something Lone Shark related. Yeah. So she was also doing kind of dirt bags. But like, you know, she had a, she was a career dirt bag. And he took that from her. She had a cell phone and a little suit. And she was like doing business on the side of a highway, which is just such a 90s feminism girl boss thing to show. Yeah. It's like when Julia

Roberts knows how to fix a car. And you're supposed to be like, and you're like they're really doing something there she moved to new york and she starts the two things we know about her at that point are that she wants desperately to have a baby and she doesn't know how to decorate her apartment and we're like okay can we get maybe a third thing like what see i felt like the apartments have it's super clunky i like i do feel like what they're trying to do there is like she's a society wife now and there's like class tension between her and everyone she's surrounded by and it does pay off on that but like for her again like I just I don't know like there were things that I'm like okay it's being done badly but I think I get what

they're trying to do but this I don't know like just like the same thing with Jackie who at first I was like okay is this going to be a super prescriptive black best friend character that we saw so much throughout the 90s and the answer is yes and also opposite like I don't know yes and also she's a demon so yeah I just don't think Jackie should have been either Al Pacino nor a demon because it does end up feeling like Marianne almost has someone to talk to and I feel like it would have been a more interesting and cohesive choice to write Jackie an actual character and how them like going through this together or like I don't know like it just felt so clunky the way that like there were elements introduced about Marianne that like didn't pay off or like went away because

they're like she's going mad kind of thing yeah right oh my gosh there's so much to unpack here there's a scene where Marianne and Jackie are talking and Marianne is trying to adjust to this new life. She had been accustomed to working. She says something like, this is the first time since I was 13 years old where I haven't had at least one job. She liked to be out in the workforce and she liked to be occupied with something that wasn't just like domestic tasks and decorating her house. So she's like lamenting about this to Jackie. Jackie's just like, what are you complaining about? Our husbands are rich and just enjoy the money. Let's go shopping and drink sharp. to know all day and you're like wait she's being written so poorly and then later it's like no we wrote

her bad on purpose she's the consumption demon you're like what right and it's evil to to get any sort of cosmetic surgery and but she's written to be this like very you know vapid vain like spending money frivolously kind of person well it's like the very like gendered way that like sin is presented too where it's like everyone it's not like the women are worse than the men it's but it's like they're they're quote of what bad in these very stereotypical ways where it's like their sins are vanity and their sins are like consumption and then men's sins are like greed and arms like and there's really no overlap except for the character of pam right ham is the only woman who has a career and i do feel like we are allowed to

Well, I guess that so does, what's her name, Mrs. the Devil. Christabella. Yeah, Christabella and pasta fijon or whatever. Yeah. Well, that's it. Guka de devil. Wow. Yeah, when you're here, your family at the...

You're the devil's garden. So that's kind of a separate thing. And then as Marianne is observing all of these sinful women, And trying to confide in Kevin to be like, things are really weird, things are very wrong. I don't like our new lives. It feels like we're doing something wrong and I'm seeing demons and blah, blah, blah. And he is, you know, again, constantly dismissing her and gaslighting her and all of that. What I can't really figure out is if the, again, if the movie wants us to empathize with her

or if it wants us to think that she's being hysterical and getting in the way of Kevin's success or a little bit of both, it almost feels to me like, yeah, we're supposed to empathize with her a bit, but also it felt as though, and I haven't read anything to this effect, so I can't confirm this, but it almost felt as though the director was like, hey, really ramp up the hysterics here, Charlize, so that we feel like she's almost a foil to Kevin because there's that scene where she's she's in the church and she's crying

and she's wrapped in a blanket and then she like throws it off of her and she's naked and crying and screaming. Yeah. And I'm like what my feeling on her was that like we are supposed to think she's telling the truth because we are given every indication that she's telling the truth.

Like if we were supposed to not find her credible, we wouldn't see what she's. sees. And so, like, I don't think that we're supposed to not believe her or, I don't know, I guess I didn't see it as like we're not supposed to see her as a foil. It just felt like she was this kind of like stand in for virtue in a virtuous world. Like her and the mom that they're like, I don't know, like they're, the only virtuous way to live is to move back to Florida and go to church for like 20 hours a day. Right. And quit your original profession that you were going to use to improve your family's financial situation and become

a peanut farmer or whatever. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I don't know if it's because we're also in the middle of prepping for an episode on Don't Worry, Darling, which is also a movie about. And also very Rosemary's Baby coded. Oh, yeah, for sure.

But similar to Devil's Advocate, Don't Worry Darling is a movie about a woman who, starts to suspect something is very wrong with her husband's job and her husband's boss and she tries to speak up about it. But that movie, not to say that that movie is like awesome and perfect or anything like that, but at least it's told from the woman's point of view. So. Yeah, imagine 80% of don't worry, darling, was from the perspective of Harry Styles. I would not have made it. Right. But I guess my point is, I just, it felt to me like we are supposed to empathize, and or pity the Marianne character, but also I feel like the movie is reveling in

and exploiting the idea of a woman's hysteria. For sure. And that's part of the, like, spookiness of this movie and the tension of this movie. But it feels very Don and Betty Draper, you know, and it feels like kind of, that also like to the extent that there is a coherent theme happening and I might be I may be too generous and seeing this in it but it feels like it's

you know kind of you can feel the echoes at least of media about the kind of long lineage of men who have signed on to value their relationships with scary mentor men at work over what it's doing to to their families and the kind of like I don't know parable of the New York professional professional class. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I, I don't know. It's so incoherent that it's hard. Like, I feel like she is, I mean, ultimately she is defined and happening in reaction

to his narrative, right? So it's, it's weird because there are like technically a lot of scenes that we see from her point of view, but it's never like, I mean, her whole story is happening in reaction to his by design. And so it's like, I don't know, it's tricky. And I feel, I fell back because it's like, Charlie is doing her best with what she's given. But it's, but it's, again, it's like, it almost felt like a fake out that they gave her women to talk to.

But, like, actually, they didn't. Yeah. And so, I don't know. Like, there's a cooler version of that character who, it's like in the same way that you see Keanu's character get more and more depraved, even though he also starts that way. So you're like, what is the progression here? Like, you also see her become more and more, like, helpless in a way that I don't know what they're trying to say. And, like, really quickly in kind of a Victorian femininity approach, where it's like, you know, most women are four or five bad dreams away from snapping.

And it's like, mental health science has come really quite far in the past hundred years, not as well. far as it could. But, you know. Right. Like you're saying, Caitlin, like, the hysteric woman trope where, like, it's just, it's so, like, inconsistent and weird. Because I did like, you know, whatever. I didn't like her character. Like, wow, so compelling. But it, like, going back to, like, the beginning where there is a clear element of, like, how she feels about stuff. And, like, she feels out of place. And, like, that is interesting. Like, she's a total fish out of water and we know why you can almost understand like why she ends up like being kind of charmed by the Al Pacino character because first of all he's the devil that's kind of his

trademark but also that like she specifically tells Kevin going into the party please don't leave me alone I'm uncomfortable he leaves her alone immediately and we do see that bear through she doesn't Alexander Petrovsky well it's like and she's super mad at him afterwards she makes him sleep on the couch and she ends up talking with Al Pacino who is like the only person at the party who isn't making her uncomfortable and it's like that's wild because what he's doing should be making her so uncomfortable well because he's like you're your hair looks like shit he's like negging her your hair looks like shit but he's like doing it sensually question mark and I guess she's like just doing the devil thing and like right how annoying lawyers are at parties

you know that if the devil starts nagging you you're like oh thank God right you're like this is the most tolerable person here um yeah i don't know like i i marian i think is an interesting character which is like what makes it such a shame that they sort of reduce her to this very tropey thing for sure and the and the fact that and it's like i appreciate that whatever it's like when are we going to have kids are we going to have kids is a big narrative in a lot of people's marriage but it also feels very like trite to be like and all she wants to do is have a baby but don't worry it's the 90s and we know that we have to do a little bit of feminism so she used to have a job and um she misses it so like cool cool cool cool yeah kailin the more i think about it it feels like the kind of Victorian

hysterical woman where she also is like the implication is kind of that she's becoming mentally ill because of all the evil around her oh yeah yeah you know and this idea of like the Victorian woman as like both weaker and more virtuous than men and therefore like you know if you're doing something if you work for the devil your wife's going to get sick right well then it's also if i was observing something that i thought was wrong or that seemed evil and i was trying to tell my partner about it and he was constantly dismissing me and ignoring me and gaslighting me I would grow increasingly frustrated, and I would also start yelling and screaming and crying.

And so her behavior is not unjustified. It's just that the movie is like, and, oh, but she's so, but I don't even know what the movie is trying to say. I don't know, because it's like the movie, like the movie can't have, it's trying to have it all ways, too, because they're also styling her like a woman who's gone mad where it like looks like she has too. two black eyes from crying at all times and shit like that and like right but we also know what she's saying is true right and that these are like correct vision there aren't visions exactly they're

like she's seeing correctly what's going on but then she paints their apartment to look like a global village cafe so that implies that she's losing it she has she has virtue vision i think is like ultimately she's she has virtuous goggles on at all times and kiannu does not have virtuous goggles on and it kills her question mark like I don't I don't know I wish that she'd gone home with his his mother that would be nice that's what I wish it happened yeah and that's a nice performance from Judith Ivey as his tent revival type mom I feel like ultimately the only character who this movie really cares about is the devil and yeah that's you know it's a fun devil They did good with the devil.

I do think, yeah, he is a, oh, that would be a fun. I don't know enough. Do you have a favorite portrayal of the devil, Sarah, as kind of a devilhead yourself? So, yeah, I put this in the series. One of my all-time favorite devil portrayals is a Saturday Night Live sketch that's a parody of the People's Court

where John Levitts is the devil, and he's trying to get damages from the plaintiffs One of them is Rosanna Arquette, who must have been hosting that week, because she sold her soul in exchange for, like, three professional hair dryers and stuff. And so it's the devil trying to get the people's court to side with him for, like, you know, the $3,000 that he invested in her hair business in exchange for her soul, that she then wasn't able to make work. and I feel like that's it like it feels like you know the devil I really like depictions where you have kind of like a funny low stakes devil who's having a hard time on daytime TV because I feel like in actual execution it all seems a bit low rent you know that you have to like go soul by soul trying to get people to sign bad contracts and and of course the association of

the devil with contract law is relatively modern. But I mean, I really like that we've taken it and like, you know, that the devil and lawyers do go together. And it's about, you know, being pressured into signing a bad contract and a lot of our modern depictions. I also, like, I saw a bedazzled at a young age and we'll always have a soft spot for that one for the Elizabeth Hurley devil. Yeah. I'm a fan of the Elizabeth Hurley devil. I mean, just on styling alone. Exactly. Yeah. so I feel like I always love a comedy devil and then if I'm watching a horror movie where it's like actually the villain is the devil I'm like whatever you know because I feel like the things that like I saw I was watching I don't know like some TikTok about hereditary the other day where I saw a position I like surprisingly don't see people state that often but which I really agree with where somebody was like you know if only they hadn't had, spoilers for hereditary, if only they hadn't had the whole, like, Satan worshipping aspect uncovered in hereditary because, like, yeah, we thought that as well.

Right? Because, like, the extreme bleakness of just the interpersonal stuff and the depiction of, like, a family being really horrible to each other while grieving is so scary. And then you bring in the devil and you're like, ugh, whatever, you know? It's like a cop out. The devil's usually a cop-out, I feel like. Yeah. I feel like the devil usually makes things less scary. So I love a good comedy devil. I mean, I think Flanders as the devil and treehouse of horror is also pretty iconic. Do either of you have favorite devil depictions? I'd have to think. I didn't, I feel like I didn't see bedazzled until I watched it for this show. I don't know. I think the only devil depiction I, oh you know what the cow and chicken devil the little cartoon devil that bounces on his own butt

i don't think i remember i remember cow and chicken i don't remember that devil got to check that out they had a devil yeah the cartoon network devil is probably my favorite devil but there you go but enough about the devil let's talk about how race is depicted in this movie oh yes it was the 90s so you know i'm sure they did a good job there this is uh movie that has non-white characters it is again like an overwhelmingly white view of new york but the non-white characters who we see are overwhelmingly these broad racist stereotypes um i think really with the exception of the two wealthy black characters jackie and lilu i forget what his name was and they've they've been corrupted by greed and they're actually al pacino or something

so it's like something but even they are like severely underwritten you know in comparison to the other characters in this world i mean i guess jackie is sort of like the only quote unquote friend at any point to marianne but again she's whatever there to either be like i'm going to teach you how to be a society wife or like it's just everything she does is in reaction to marianne or Palpichita, like she doesn't really exist independently. And then they make that canon, which is a choice. Right. And then with her husband, Lehman, he's barely a character, but he's the guy who

approaches Keanu in Florida to be like, hey, come up to New York. Yeah, he says something. He thinks that he's being pranked. He's like, oh, ha, ha, who put you up to this? You being black is a joke. A part of the joke, right? And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, what was going on in Florida law firms in 1997?

I mean, I was like, I guess that that is a realistic depiction of a random white guy at a bar in Florida is that he's weird and racist. But like, yeah, so there's like a lot of offhand comments about that. Most black and brown characters appear as antagonists or just like, I mean, I'm thinking about the guys on the train are portrayed in this very stereotypical way. One of the two unhoused people who kills Jeffrey Jones is a black character that I don't even want to, like, rehash the specific stereotypes there because you know what they are. Yeah. But it's just like, yeah, it is very 90s in its portrayal of race. The Delroy Lindo character. Yes.

So I think you were alluding to this toward the top of the episode, Sarah, but the question of, Because Kevin defends his character in court saying that he was simply carrying out a religious practice, which he has the constitutional right to do. That darn constitution. But he's making the argument like, we might think that killing a goat at home is weird in our Western Christian world. But is it any weirder than eating veal or getting circumcised or other. cultural practices that we deem to be normal and it's like yeah fair point but it feels like the movie is presenting all of this as like we are still supposed to think that philippe moyes is like weird and what he's doing is really fucked up because he had to hire the devil to defend him like

that tells you everything you need to know about and he's got too many candles like he's either shooting a selene dion music video or he's worshipping the devil is the implication I feel like And now if Joel Schumacher had been staging the candle set, based on what we know about his Phantom of the Opera sets, it would have, it felt a little slap dash. There's a better director to have a room full of candles. Yeah. So that felt all over the place and racist and the way that that character is portrayed. And the idea is that, right, that like Keanu Reeves is making sort of a classic 90s liberal argument of like multiculturalism is good. It's like too much culture equals devil.

Right. Which I think law and order was also pointing out at the time. It's like, don't be too tolerant. You could be tolerating the devil. The devil. Yes. So that's a mess. This movie's just a mess.

This movie's just a weird mess. Like messy. And yet weirdly well executed. Like the art design is fantastic. It looks great. The editing, I think, is done very well. And then in terms of theme, you're like, what? You have to imagine that they were editing around a lot.

Including Al Pacino speaking Spanish, sort of. But just a little more about the production. I mean, we've talked about a lot of it. Some of it's just funny, which is that Al Pacino hated Taylor Hackford, the director, and would always show up late and was like, I hate this guy. He allegedly did not like Keanu and thought Keanu was doing a bad job, which is mean to say, but is it incorrect. to say we don't know oh and that that speaking to your earlier point sarah that this movie was sort

of languishing in production for a while but then got a real shot to the arm when the oj simpson case happened oh my god they were like oh this is now's the time to do this and that was got a green light these evil lawyer movies yeah yeah you might even say this movie was in development hell that's where the devil lives alpuccino's keeping the movie movie inside of the inside of his big room it's too eerie his big fuck room that he lives in everywhere it's like you don't ever want to just lie down really even if you don't sleep even if you don't need to sleep it's nice to lie down it's so nice to lie down it's my favorite thing to do edward cullen you don't want to lie down the devil doesn't need floor time am i really to believe

that um but yeah i'm like i think that that's oh the last thing I wanted to say was about Pam because I left her out of the recap altogether because I was like who who even is Pam but please please continue I like Pam also Pam is played by an actor named Deborah Monk who I'd never heard of but she has a Tony and Emmy so wow yeah she's halfway to eGotting now that you know Deborah Monk's face you're going to see her in everything and I feel like she's kind of the Jerry of this firm perhaps I I whatever I The character is random, but I did feel like it just brought up another 90s-ish trope where there's two women that work at this law firm. One is the daughter of the devil. We know that she is multilingual, but we don't really know what she does because she's there to be hot, which is not saying anything about the actor. It's saying that's how this part was written for Connie Nielsen.

But Pam is allowed to just be good at her job. And I think the reason that is is because she is in her 40s. and is not rail thin, which is the, like... In the 90s, I think you're allowed to be good at your job as a woman and actually depicted doing it occasionally if you're like menopausal and are wearing a top with big buttons on it. Right. I mean, well, it's just like the...

Another example of like, you just can't win no matter who you are. Of like, sure, if we are telling you that this character is not sexually desirable, then we will be okay with her being just canonically good at her job. you're like now what the fuck what the fuck i guess she's on the gilded age which is a show that i watch so there you go yeah anyways i keep meaning to watch that i like to see cynthia nixon do something else you'd love you'd love the damn gilded age i thought i would i love a big over the top house it's a show to watch with your mom it's good is christine beransky in it or am i making up yeah yeah she and cynthia nixon are sisters which genius oh wow genius casting yeah i did

think my mom would get bored very quickly if there's not like one murder per episode because she's very like that's what she expects out of TV at this point but you know we can always I can always edit something in you could just edit a random murder into everything yeah and I'll be like there you go someone's dad I guess I feel like a clip from unsolved mysteries and then I'll be like okay this is all about the murder it may not be clear right now but they're investigating the murder by having sex in this nice bed. But Jamie, did you uncover? I really liked the story that they got in legal trouble with like the sort of statue,

the big like art piece behind Al Pacino's desk and his big devil office because an artist who had made a very similar sculpture sued and they were going to maybe not be able to release it on time for home video. And so they had to like go back and kind of incredibly at this point in time, digitally alter the footage of this art piece so that it basically wasn't too similar to the artist's previous piece, which apparently they were emulating pretty closely. And so originally had like human figures trapped in this kind of maelstrom, maelstrom. That's probably the word. And so they like had to, it's definitely not male storm because that would just be a lot of male

in a cyclone. But so they had to smooth the human figures out of this piece. And so they had to smooth the human figures out of this piece until the kind of big final monologue scene when they're allowed to be there again. But it's, I guess, you think about the people who had to do that job. That's so funny to me because like, no matter which way, no matter what way you hack it, it looks like shit. Like, yeah. So that also cry. Yeah, I also saw that they used Pacino's like Godfather Two face to digitally edit in for when he's going like, but a little, which no one will notice that movie is only 20 years old at this point that movie is an obscure little film no one's ever seen that yeah i think that was everything i had this movie was very successful but i do feel like and

let me know if i'm just if this is like an i've missed the boat thing but i do feel like this movie has sort of been lost to time it didn't really have staying power i agree right it's one of those movies that did really well at the time but like who's ever like come on sunny boy you're 14 time to watch the devil's advocate you're going to learn so much about life. Yeah. It could be fun, though. This has been lost to time to the point where I barely knew what this movie was.

And I thought it was a really different movie. I thought it was Meachio Black. And you thought it was the devil's, the devil's own? None of my business. This movie would play well in a double feature with The Devil Wars Prada, which is also about having a demanding boss and a partner who doesn't like it. Wow. And I would like to see that.

Yeah. Does this movie pass the Bechtel test? I think if we're to believe that everyone in the cast is not secretly out, Pacino, yes. Yes, because Marianne talks to women like Jackie and Pam and maybe a third woman about. My mother-in-law reads the Bible to her, which is sometimes about stuff. Alice, her mother-in-law. There is a random third woman who appears for just the one scene. to be in her underwear and be like sin is amazing you're like who the fuck are you i'm pretty sure she's

the his wife of the geoffrey jones character oh i think that's what bummer for her in general yes but yeah they're talking about chardonnay and boobs i mean what what passes the beckle test more than two women talking about boobs you ever talk with your girlies about boobies at the store i mean yeah i mean yes i have talked about boobies with my friends at the store but there's so much more to me than that I also talk about butts with my friends at the store that is equally important those two things that's seen as a documentary I so yeah so it does technically pass the bechal test and I think it actually does credibly pass the bechdel test but with an unusual caveat but as we've been saying for 10 years now

that doesn't mean it's a feminist movie so let's get to the actual metric the metric that does mean shit, which is the Bechtelcast nipple scale where we rate the movie zero to five nipples based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. And well, I think this is a half nipple shrug for reasons I can't even articulate. I don't even know why I would give it as many as one half nipple. But I guess because we like do cut back to Mary. Marianne pretty frequently and like check in with her and what she's going through, which is a very relatable experience for many women. So, because a lot of women are married to men who maybe not literally work for the devil, but

they're doing very evil work in their lives. So my friend's husband works at Meta. Oh, yikes. so yeah I'll give this a half nipple and I guess I'll give it to

Charlize Theron I don't know she's doing her best she's doing her best yeah I'm gonna I don't for some reason I'm gonna give it one I'm gonna give it one

because and it's and I give the nipple to fun conceptually I love fun and this movie is it

yeah true No, this movie is not feminist. It is, it does poorly in terms of, it mentions gender roles and then proceeds to really do nothing with it and then have the male protagonist who's the literal son of the devil, maybe or maybe not. It ends with him experiencing no consequence. Don't worry, this is another story about a male redemption arc, maybe. But not, but they don't even bother to redeem him. I guess he shoots himself with that. He gets to learn nothing, which is ideal.

Yeah. So it is a very comfortable movie for bad men to watch. I don't know. The Al Pacino performance is so funny to me everywhere. Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to give it one nipple for some reason. I cannot be held accountable for this rating.

And I'm going to give it to the line read everywhere. Nice. Sarah. Well, I'm going to give a nipple to the line read. I'm a fan of it. man which I've always loved I don't know that last speech by the devil like almost makes some good points and then it's like have sex with your sister and you're like all right never mind it is wild that it lands there because he's just been talking for I know it's not actually 20

minutes but at least 10 minutes he is like talking in circles and he's like so as I was saying have sex with your sister you're like how did we land there how is that where that speech At one point he stops and then starts again. Yeah. Like, it's fantastic. It's sort of like my favorite kind of bad movie climax where it's just happening in a room, but there's really not any actions. And so he's just walking in a circle for like 10 minutes.

It is a big room. So he does have space for that. But he's the, yeah, he's the devil. He's got a big old room. I mean, if not for Al Pacino, no one would have watched this thing. You know, imagine if they got like Gene Hackman. It would just, it would have. been a whole other deal. Yeah, it's true. I mean, maybe it would have been okay, but like, would I have

seen? Al Pacito has the devil. Like, that's... It just makes sense. That puts butts in seats. That's $100 million at the box office. Like, I kind of, the thing is, I kind of do believe that he could be the devil. Like, and I do believe this depiction of the devil because he's, like, just fundamentally annoying, which I think is, like, biblically accurate. And I also, I, like, just not in a particularly well-considered way, but from my heart, I want to give part of that nipple to Charlize there and just for like be putting up sample wall treatments while she's got an entire fried piece of chicken in her mouth from Popeyes. I guess I think that's very iconic behavior and it was inspiring to me in some obscure way. She's also putting what I think are some of the ugliest colors to

paint on your wall. I know. That's like not even on design sense or whatever that horrifying. show was were they doing that one is like a shrek green one that was my childhood bedroom color i think like i i think ultimate like i i liked i was like just let her make her apartment tacky come on being tacky is awesome and fun it really is but jacky said no tacky no tacky for jacky no tacky for jacky so charlie's is just shit out of luck because jacky said no tacky we got to end the episode we got to end the episode Sarah where can we find the new show when does it come out tell us everything

so the new show it's an eight-part miniseries it's called the devil you know think by the time you're hearing this new episodes will already be coming out at premieres or has premiered October 20th we're going to be putting episodes out through mid-December there are bonus episodes if you want to hear them where we get more

interviews for context including getting to talk to a gala fan theory scholar. Wow. And so you can hear it wherever fine podcasts are distributed. And you can also catch the first episode on the feet of my own every two weeks show you're wrong about, which is about misremembered history. And Jamie, you and I have a bonus episode this very month of October when I am talking to you about bimboes.

Who would have thought? And I'm so happy to be putting that one out too. I love that you're two, I mean, you have many areas of expertise, but in the top, easily the top five are bimboes and the devil. But really, yeah, because what do we hate? What's more evil than like the Prince of Darkness? It's a woman who wears a lip color that we don't like. It's true. And that's why the Elizabeth Hurley performance of the devil is the definitive one.

Oh, my God. Listeners, thank you for joining us for this episode that's not quite as long as the devil's advocate, but closer than you think. Please illegally pirate this movie. Don't give them any money, but like it is a fun movie to watch with friends. Yeah. The devil wants you to steal, so do it. The devil loves when you use 1,2,3movies.R.U, and it breaks your computer. I like doing that.

I was like, I think it has reduced the, whatever. We're bringing back pirating. And you can follow us in all the normal places, that being mainly Instagram. And you can join our Patreon, aka Matrion, where every month we do two original episodes on a theme of ours or you are choosing always something weird like lawyer bureery question mark if you want that maybe five bucks a month gets you that and access to our hundreds of episodes in our back catalog indeed and with that shall we go shopping and undress in the middle of the store while we're drinking chardonnay and touch each other's boobs sure but

i might secretly be out but you know i hope you you are. That's a kink for some people. All right, bye. Bye. Bye. The Bechtelcast is a production of IHeart Media, hosted and produced by me, Jamie Loftus. And me, Caitlin Durante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichtenen. And edited by Caitlin Durante. Ever heard of them? That's me. And our logo and merch and all of our artwork, in fact, are designed by Jamie Loftus, ever heard of her? Oh, my God. And our theme song, by the way, was composed by Mike Kaplan.

With vocals by Catherine Voskrasinski. Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree slash Bechtelcast. Johnny Knoxville here. Check out Crimeless, Hillbilly Heist, my new true crime podcast from Smartless Media, Campside Media, and Big Money Players. the true story of the almost perfect crime and the Nimrods who almost pulled it off. It was kind of like the perfect storm in a sewer. That was dumb.

Do not follow my example. Listen to Crimless, Hillbilly Heist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Kyle McLaughlin. You might know me as that guy from Twin Peaks, Sex and the City, or just the Internet stand. I have a new podcast called. called What Are We Even Doing, where I embark on a noble quest to understand the brilliant chaos of youth culture. Each week, I invite someone fascinating to join me to talk about navigating this high-speed rollercoaster we call reality. Join me and my delightful guests every Thursday, and let's get weird together in a good way.

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Two rich young Americans move to the Costa Rican jungle to start over, but one of them will end up dead, and the other tried for murder three times. It starts with a dream, a nature reserve, and a spectacular new home. But little by little, they lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of condoms. Control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.