THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE and THE PROMISED DAY

[RonPrice]

THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE
and
THE PROMISED DAY

Part 1:

The Devil's Advocate1 is a 1997 American mystery thriller film based on a novel with the same name. The film won the Best Horror Film for 1998 from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films.  It stars Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino. The film's title is a reference to the commonly used phrase "devil's advocate", and Pacino's character is named after the author of Paradise Lost, John Milton. The movie has some minor allusions to this epic of Milton's, such as the famous quotation: "Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven".

I won't give you the details of the plot, the direction and the cast, the film's reception, the legal problems the film encountered, or the many awards it won. Wikipedia has a fine summary of all these central aspects of the film for those with the interest, whether or not you have seen the film.

Part 2:

When this film won its awards in 1998, I had my eye on an early retirement from FT paid-employment as a teacher-lecturer in what is now a polytechnic in Western Australia, after a 50 year student and employment life: 1949 to 1999.   Now, 17 years later, I have seen this film twice.  I rarely ever want to see a film more than once. This evening I watched it for the second time,1 and decided to write a little think-piece about it.  The film raised several philosophico-theological issues which I intend to comment on below.  After watching this film for the second time, I wrote the following lines.-Ron Price with thanks to 1The Devil's Advocate, GEMTV, 9:30-12:30 p.m. 25/2/'14 and 26/2/'14.

Part 3:
I could say that this film
was highly prophetic, &
especially accurate in its
view of history, at least in
a series of basic theologico-
philosophical perspectives.

It's all useful time-of-the-end
stuff for a mass audience as a
21st century is about to open
at this climacteric of history
when all hell has both broken-
out, and is about to continue,
on its seemingly inevitable and
not so petty pace as we head into
many more decades of a tempest,
unprecedented in its violence, &
unpredictable in its long course.

As this tempest goes on sweeping the
face of this Earth, & harrowing-up the
souls of its inhabitants leading bleeding
humanity, and its billions, wretchedly
oblivious of its God, from its calvary to
its ultimate resurrection as we attempt to
labour serenely to lead humanity out of
its misery and its shame to the loftiest
summits of power and glory in the years,
in this millennium and its centuries ahead.1

1 Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day Is Come, Baha'i Pub. Trust, New Delhi, 1976, p. 129.--Ron Price, 26 February 2014