THE ADVOCATE'S DEVIL (1997)
A Film Review Copyright Dragan Antulov 2004
Old adage about people sticking what they know best should be applied to Allan Dershowitz. Lawyer who had risen to global fame thanks to the successful defences of rich and famous clients tried his hand at writing fiction. THE ADVOCATE'S DEVIL, 1997 television film directed by Jeff Bleckner, is screen adaptation of Dershowitz's novel.
Protagonist of the film is Abe Ringel (played by Ken Olin), top criminal defence lawyer. He gets hired by Joe Campbell (played by Holt McCallany), immensely popular basketball player who was accused of rape. Ringel uses all of his skills and experience and successfully defends the athlete in court. However, during the trial he also discovers that Campbell is really dangerous sex maniac. Professional ethics bar Ringel from disclosing those findings to the public. To make things worse, Campbell tricks Ringel's teen daughter Emma (played by Gina Philips) into his room.
Dershowitz, whose face is recognisable even to people who don't have a clue about Anglo-Saxon legal tradition, is obviously an expert when it comes to issues of law and their media presentation. Unfortunately, that talent doesn't involve writing fiction or at least this is the impression given by Cyrus Nowrasteh's and James Steven Sadwith's script. The plot of the film stops being interesting after five minutes and the attempts to spice its with some romantic subplots only make this film utterly boring. Director Jeff Bleckner tries to keep viewers' attention with couple of unusual shots, but all his efforts are in vain and THE ADVOCATE'S DEVIL can't stray from its path to oblivion.
RATING: 2/10 (-)
Review written on March 25th 2004
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in Croatian http://www.ofcs.org - Online Films Critics Society
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