Lyrics
Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man's soul and faith
I was 'round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands a’ sealed his fate
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
I stuck around St. Petersburg
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed the Czar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vain
I rode a tank
Held a general's rank
When the Blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
Ah, what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, ah yeah
I watched with glee
While your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades
For the god they made
I shouted out,
"Who killed the Kennedy's?"
When after all
It was you and me
Let me please introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
And I laid traps for troubadours
Who get killed before they reached Bombay
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, ahhh yeah, get down, baby
(2:54) woo
(3:03) woooah
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
But what's confusing you
Is just the nature of my game mmm yeah
Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
'Cause I'm in need of some restraint
So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, have some taste
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or I'll lay your soul to waste, mmm yeah
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, mmm yeah
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, mmm mean it, get down
(4:43) Woo, who
ah yeah, get on down
Oh yeah
(4:52) bum bum ba ba ba do a, bum bum ba ba ba do a
(5:06) yea Ahh yeah!
Tell me baby, what's my name
Tell me honey, a can ya guess my name
Tell me baby, what's my name
I tell you one time, you're to blame
Oh, who
woo, woo
Woo, who alright
(5:35) oo, oo oo
Woo, who, who
Woo, who, who
Oh, yeah
Woo, who, who
Woo, who, who
Oh, yeah
well What's my name
Tell me, baby, a what's my name
Tell me, sweetie, a what's my name
oo, who, who
oo, who, who
oo, who, who
oo, who, who
oo, who, who
oo, who, who
oo, who, who
Ahhhhh, yeah
Woo woo
I've been thinking a bit recently about how important good singing is for my enjoyment of a song. Or how important it is that the singer of the song has a good voice. I find Adele for example pretty boring, while I think that Lana Del Rey is the most interesting female singer to come out in this century. Yet it is undeniable that Adele has a better, stronger voice than Del Rey. She is a 'better' singer. Sympathy for the Devil is a good example of this. Especially in the second half of the song it is pretty clear that Mick Jagger is not a good singer. He is much worse than Adele (and probably also worse than Lana del Rey). Yet Adele has never made a song as good as this one. Nor do I believe that this would be a better song if you would swap her with Jagger. Anyway, on to the movie. It is not a very inspired choice, but it was a very easy one.
The Movie: The Devil's Advocate (Taylor Hackford, 1997)
I found The Devil's Advocate to be a pretty entertaining film, but it is a huge, way too long mess. It tries do do too much, but is too often not very successful. This could have been a great 90 minute sleazy, pulpy thriller/horror. Instead it is nearly 2,5 hours long. In this 2,5 hours it tries to be a sleazy, pulpy horror movie, a serious horror movie, a romantic drama, a courthouse drama and even a satire. I think that's it, though I might've forgotten some other genres it wants to be. And everytime it does something good or even great it goes on to do something unbelievably stupid. The best example of this comes near the end. Keanu Reeves plays a Florida advocate who has never lost a case. After winning a particularly hard case he is brought to New York to work for John Milton, a rich corporate. John Milton is played by Al Pacino and is the literal devil. I found it a bit funny that, as he is brought up by his deeply religious mother, Reeves' character Kevin Lomax, seems completely oblivious to the name of his boss. But Kevin is a pretty oblivious fella anyway. Only in his final confrontation with John, after a whole lot of hints, does he realize that his boss is the devil incarnated.
This final confrontation is a glorious, relatively long scene. A major reason for this is Al Pacino. In this movie he gives a masterclass in convincingly overacting/chewing the scenery. It is rare to see someone having so much fun playing a role, while at the same time being utterly convincing. In that final confrontation he raises his game even more. He is (finally) helped by some juicy dialogue about how he differs from God (it's too bad really that they didn't get someone to play God incarnated), how he is the last humanist on earth, how he is awesome, and how he can make Kevin's life awesome. How can he make Kevin's lfie awesome? Well, if Kevin is willing to fuck Christabella, one of his hot colleagues, who is actually also Kevin's half-sister they will raise Satan's kid and rule the world. And why must Kevin do this? Well because John, that devil, is Kevin's father. One night in 1966 he seduced Kevin's deeply religious mother. That's also why Kevin won all his cases. It was 'divine' intervention. Only not by God, but by the devil. As you can see this scene is completely bonkers. But in a glorious way, with deliciously pulpy dialogue, an Al Pacino having the time of his life, some great cinematography and some really good special effects. I wished that more of the movie was in that vein, but I loved that scene so much that I was willing to forgive every flaw of the movie. And then, the scene ended and we cut to what turned out to be the most stupid plot twist I've ever seen. And one of the worst, most stupid and disappointing endings I've ever seen. It was a hackneyed way to stupidly and lazily add a moral and a happy ending to the movie.
That last scene was fortunately not the only time the movie embraced it's pulpy potential. There is also for example a great scene in which Al Pacino berates in Spanish a couple of thugs in the subway. As you see basically everything great about this movie involves Al Pacino. He is also given a slightly satiric speech that reminded me a bit of Ned Beatty's famous speech in Network. That too is pretty entertaining. When it did this kind of things, the movie was great fun. Unfortunately too often it did other things. The scenes were the movie tried to be a serious horror movie were admittedly pretty scary, but they scared me, because of how flawed they were. They were completely random. There were basically two or three of them and there was no single reason why they would exist in the movie. So they caught me pretty much by surprise. There was also no logic or consistency within them. The director showed pretty gross things that had no real relation to the plot or 'ideas' of the movie. So during those I was prepared for any randomly horrific thing to happen. As I said I was pretty tense during them, but I am not sure that it was because of good film making.
But whether for good or bad reasons, at least the horror scenes worked. The scenes where the movie tried to be a courthouse drama or a relationships drama didn't work in any way and there were too many of them. The courthouse drama was the most bland, unimaginative and dull courthouse drama I've ever seen. Not only that, the movie often couldn't even convincingly make clear how Reeves won his cases. As for the relationship drama. Well, if there is one cinematic cliche I am tired of, it is that of the couple fighting irrationally, because one half of the couple spends to much time at his/her job. The movie probably sets the world record for such scenes. There are about six/seven of them. And of course each scene follows the same pattern. Kevin comes home late from work, his wife is mad him, they shout idiotically, Kevin promises to be there for her, and after two scenes the whole thing starts anew. By the way Kevin's wife is played by Charlize Theron. The previous Reeves-Theron movie I discussed here was Sweet November. That was probably the worst movie I've yet discussed on this blog, but at least Reeves and Theron had much better chemistry there and at least they tried to be sympathetic. They also actually gave better performances there than here. I've often thought that the claims that Reeves is a bad actor are exaggerated, but his performance here can't be excused. Even by his usual standards he wouldn't be able to hold his own in a scene with Al Pacino. But here with Pacino at his best and Reevvves at his worst, it is just laughable. He also seems to think he is in a different movie from Pacino. While Pacino knows he is what should be a pulpy entertainment, Reeves thinks he is in an Oscar-worthy imimportant ddrama. He overacts his seriousness. This is by far his worst performance.
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