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DEVIL’S ADVOCATE
The ambitious Florida lawyer is defending a pedophile mathematics teacher at court.
The behavior of the teacher makes it obvious for Lomax that the charges are justified. His reason tells him he should give the case up and should not proceed with it, but when a journalist starts mocking him, saying voila, his row of successes is over, his ego prevails over his feelings and in the end, he wins the case.
A mysterious figure offers him a job in New York. The offer is so enticing that he cannot resist. He finds himself in an extremely luxurious environment together with her similarly ambitious wife.
It is only Lomax’s mother, a fanatic churchgoer, who has an ominous presentiment, but the young couple do not take heed to her words.
Lomax gets the challenges one after the other.
When he has to act as a lawyer in connection with a health-care offence, he meets with the accused, who he finds in a cellar full of burning candles.
The charge against the accused, Philipp Moyez, is that on a traditional religious ritual, he slaughtered a goat, which is an indispensable part of the ritual. For this reason, the bureaus, and more precisely a certain Mr. Merto, reported him.
Moyez stresses to the lawyer that blood is a kind of investment, and that he should consider it a kind of spiritual currency.
Lomax does not understand the remark.
It means that with blood-sacrifice it is possible to attract different spirit-beings; probably the Indian wanted to express that Lomax, too, should be aware of this.
Moyez produces an animal tongue and drives nails into it, saying that with this, he silences the people who are accusing him.
This ritual is known in the culture of several ancient peoples. They poke a body part of an animal repeatedly which symbolizes the person to be punished, or a doll symbolizing their enemy, so that they take away the person’s strength and power. For the jabbing, they use pins and nails.
Goat symbolizes Satan in the cultures of several peoples, and its slaughter symbolizes getting rid of negative forces.
In court, Lomax is arguing that they do not have the right to control religious rituals just because they are not that wide-spread in America.
The prosecutor then gets seized with a fit of coughing.
In the end, Lomax wins the suit, and with it, his boss’s, Milton’s ovation, too.
John Milton suggests Lomax that he should mingle with people, and travel by metro and on foot, so that he could get to know people better.
On the company party, both members of the couple are tempted by the wind of seduction.
It is Milton who tries to bewitch Mary Ann, while Lomax is under the siege of his colleague, Christabella.
The names Christopher, Chris, Christabella, Christina and Christian are favored names with writers of mystical films. As Chris comes from the word "Christ", with this device, they want to further increase the mysticism of the film consciously or subconsciously.
To be honest, it is not too original an idea.
One of the clients of the company, the biggest real estate tycoon of the city, Alex Cullen commits a triple murder.
Despite the others’ disapproval, Milton entrusts Kevin with the tasks around his defense.
Based on Cullen’s account, it seems he was set up.
Mary Ann changes her hair-style.
The wives who are bored give her advice on how she should spend the money and how she can get rid of the boredom she feels because of her being always alone.
The woman has visions. She sees the ladies as monsters. She tells about it to her husband, but he does not believe her. Kevin thinks that she simply has drunk too much alcohol.
The woman admits that perhaps it was the man’s mother who was right and that he should not have taken on the job.
During sex it is Christabella’s face which the man sees and he is fantasizing about her.
Mary Ann feels that he is somewhere else in mind.
Satan always tries to worm his way into us first through our desires. Unfortunately, he is capable of taking on the form of anyone and anything, and the person who has the desire is not even aware of who he or she is uniting energetically with.
Lomax’s mother arrives to New York. The woman is spectacularly reserved towards Milton.
The next day, she says that she would like to go home, but her son does not take her seriously.
Mary Ann’s nightmares become real.
It turns out she cannot conceive.
She looks worse and worse. Milton offers Kevin that he can give the case to someone else, and that in this way, he would be able to devote his attention to his wife, but the man rejects him. He is afraid that if he gives up now because of his wife, later he will probably hate her for this failure which he would have had to take because of her.
It is logic, the vibration of the left brain hemisphere which is closest to the frequencies of the material world.
And, materialism is Satan’s field.
Kevin tells Milton that the general manager is jealous of him.
Milton’s answer,
"Eddie's got himself in trouble again. And he wants me to save him. Only this time, I can't."
"God’s special creature!"
"Watching him bounce around like a... wind-up toy. Like 250 pounds of self-serving greed on wheels."
"Take a good look, because he’s the poster child for the next millennium."
"These people, it’s no mystery where they come from.
You sharpen the human appetite to the point where it can split atoms with its desire.
You build egos the size of cathedrals. Fiber-optically connect the world to every eager impulse.
Grease even the dullest dreams with these dollar-green gold-plated fantasies until every human becomes an aspiring emperor, becomes his own god."
"And as we’re scrambling from one deal to the next, who’s got his eye on the planet?
As the air thickens, the water sours, even the bees’ honey takes on the metallic taste of radioactivity, and it just keeps coming, faster and faster. There’s no chance to plan, to prepare.
It’s buy futures, sell futures, when there is no future."
"We got a runaway train… We got a billion Eddie Barzoons all jogging into the future."
"Every one of them is getting ready to fistf*ck God’s ex-planet, lick their fingers clean, as they reach out toward their pristine, cybernetic keyboards, to tote up their f*cking billable hours."
"And then it hits home. You got to pay your own way, Eddie.
It’s a little late in the game to buy out now."
Milton’s cynicism describes perfectly the millions of career men of our age.
Eddie is beaten to death by two beggars for his golden watch.
Mary Ann is witnessing it from the window from beginning to end.
Meanwhile, there is a new turn in the case of the tycoon charged with the triple killings.
A lover appears on the scene who establishes an alibi for him for the hour of the murders.
Kevin starts having suspicions that he may be being deceived, and that perhaps Cullen is indeed the killer.
Milton points it out to him that he should listen to his conscience. He will support him regardless of whether he wins the suit or not.
In spite of his conviction, Kevin has the accused acquitted, choosing success.
Milton gives the man the chance several times to choose the right path, but still, he remains captive to his own ambitions.
Kevin finds his wife in the church in a troubled state.
The woman claims that in the afternoon, Milton visited her and raped her.
The man does not believe her, since his boss was together with him in the courtroom.
The woman’s body is full of scratches, but the man thinks she’s crazy.
Mary Ann is hospitalized.
The woman says, "I know why this is happening.
It’s the money. Blood money. We just drank it down, both of us... We knew they were guilty. But you just kept on winning every time.
And I can’t look at myself in the mirror. And then I see a monster."
It is a bit sickening how the priest is talking about Eddie’s life on his funeral.
A man from the Justice Department warns Kevin about Milton’s dirty businesses.
Weapons, chemical waste, drugs, bribed judges.
Kevin does not pay attention to him.
The man tells him that the mathematics teacher whom he defended molested someone again, and that this time, he was caught with the body of a 10 year-old girl.
Hearing this, Kevin stops for a minute but does not react.
In the meantime, Milton sticks his finger into holy water which starts sizzling, while the man from the Justice Department is hit deadly by a car.
Kevin’s mother reads out to Mary Ann of the Bible.
The mother tells her son that she was to New York before already, in 1966, on a Baptist Youth Meeting, and she met Kevin’s father there.
The mother would continue her story but her son does not let her to.
Kevin’s colleague keeps a mirror up to Mary Ann, who sees a snarling face.
Mary Ann stabs herself in the neck with a piece of glass before her husband’s very eyes. She is dying.
Kevin asks her mother to finish her story.
The woman tells him that the waiter could quote from the whole Bible by heart, which enchanted her.
This man was Milton.
Kevin leaves to meet with Milton despite her mother’s protest.
Milton’s words,
"I have been watching... Watching. Waiting.
But I'm no puppeteer... No, I only set the stage. You pull your own strings."
"Free will."
Kevin starts shooting at Milton, but he is not harmed by the bullets, and, what is more, he is encouraging him to hold on to his fury to the end!
Milton calls Kevin’s attention to the fact that he warned him about the possibility of choice in every minute before a decision, about his freedom to choose between his career and his wife, but he always decided to opt for victory.
Kevin is not willing to take responsibility for his actions in these moments even, and he is still insisting that he will not ever lose.
"Vanity. That’s my favorite sin," - says Milton - "it’s so basic. Self-love. The all-natural opiate."
"You know it’s not that you didn’t care for Mary-Ann... it’s just that you were a little more involved with someone else. Yourself."
He wants to convince his son to forget his remorse and become himself.
The tempting offer which is also a trap at the same time.
Remorse induces negative energies, so it is not worth nourishing it because it will make both the body and the mind ill.
Milton interprets getting rid of it in a way that he should not care about others, just consider his own interests.
Normally, it is forgiving which can take remorse out.
Forgiving ourselves and, of course, asking for the forgiveness of those who we hurt either consciously or unknowingly.
Christabella, about who it turns out that she is Kevin’s half-sister, wants to seduce him, but he cannot give in to the temptation.
Milton then says,
"Who are you carrying all those bricks for anyway? God? Is that it? God?
Well, I’ll tell you. Let me give you a little inside information.
God likes to watch.
He’s a prankster. Think about it!
He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does he do?
I swear, for his own amusement, his own private, cosmic gag reel, he sets the rules in opposition.
It’s the goof of all time.
Look, but don’t touch.
Touch, but don’t taste.
Taste, don’t swallow.
And while you’re jumping from one foot to the next, what is he doing?
He’s laughing his sick, f*cking ass off!
He’s a tightass! He’s a sadist!
He’s an absentee landlord!
Worship that? Never!"
This is what Satan thinks of God.
But is he indeed talking about God?
The limiting rules have been created by the different church leaders, not by God.
God has given free will, and he has even let us fall sometimes.
What is important is that we should learn to know the difference between good and bad.
The bad is sometimes just necessary, and the good does not always mean absolute happiness.
"I’m here on the ground with my nose in it since the whole thing began!
I’ve nurtured every sensation man has been inspired to have!
I cared about what he wanted and I never judged him!
Why? Because I never rejected him, in spite of all his imperfections!
I’m a fan of man!!
I’m a humanist.
Maybe the last humanist.
Who in their right mind could possibly deny the 20th century was entirely mine? All of it...! Mine.
I’m peaking... It’s my time now."
At this part, I have to do Milton justice!
Lucifer really did make a sacrifice when he took on this necessary mission on Earth.
No matter how strange it sounds, he does in fact love people and respect God.
What certain people do with the negative energies to one another is the responsibility of those people.
It is not him who pulls the trigger, who gives orders for spreading the radioactive waste in nature, and it is not him, either, who holds the knife which takes someone’s life.
Ambition, vanity, a desire for material well-being, sexual desire and fear are inviting codes of the dark forces.
We need to make it conscious in ourselves that on this planet, Lucifer is the host, and this is just why we have to accept him, at least by expressing our respect towards him.
When visiting somebody, what would it be like if we were continuously swearing and spitting at the host?
Sooner or later he would make us feel that we are not welcome, and he would do everything to make us leave his territory as soon as possible.
We must respect Lucifer, but we should not serve him.
With flowing negative energies in ourselves we do service to him, and sooner or later, we will become his servant. However, respect ensures a safe distance for us!
Unfortunately, few people know that Lucifer is the lord of this world only, and that in the Universe, there are countless other negative energies which are even more dangerous than the angel of hell, and who are more and more interested in our planet.
They have already had some effect on many people - it’s enough to think of the different fanatic religious sects.
Kevin does not accept the offer, he does not want to unite with his sister.
By his free will he chooses self-sacrifice, with which he ruins his father’s plans.
Of course, this is not where the story ends, Satan finds the way to settle things in a manner that his son fall into the trap of his own vanity again.
In the film, it is portrayed perfectly what those human attributes are which will make us desirable to Satan.
In every case when we put our will against the will of the community, when we force our expectations on others, we open more and more cracks for the destructive forces, which, with time, will open the door to hell as well.
Who flows negative energy will sooner or later be swallowed by darkness!
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