The Devil's Own (2000, VHS)

I hate comparing movies that really don't have much in common, but the day before I saw "The Devil's Own", I had just seen "The Saint", and both movies share the same strange unsatisfying feeling. "The Devil's Own" has had some controversy surrounding it before it came out. They started filming the movie before they had a finished script, and it really shows. The film varies greatly in the way it treats the characters, and the viewers. The movie seems to go in different directions quite a bit. In other words, it is as if the script and the star's motivations changed directions during the production.

One of the first problems I had was with the title. Where did this come from? Is it supposed to describe Pitt's character? I guess in some scenes it could have. After the movies fairly action packed opening scene, I found the first hour very boring. None of the early scenes in America ever seemed quite real. Harrison Ford really had nothing to do. His performance really doesn't kick in until about the 75 minutes mark.

The film has moments of violence that seem real, but they really do make us dislike Pitt's character. We see him kill several innocent army soldiers. Yeah, I know they aren't really innocent to Pitt, but they weren't trying to kill him at first either. This first conflict also showed that Pitt didn't seem to care for all the innocent bystanders who were supposedly the people that Pitt was fighting his war for. We are told he is responsible for 18 murders.

Another pointless scene of violence was where we see Ruben Blades being shot. Why would they do this? If we weren't supposed to be rooting for Pitt why set him up as a hero? This movie just doesn't know where it should stand with his character. Roger Ebert suggests that the Pitt character was supposed to be a cold hateful villain who is given a sense of morality because, well, he's Brad Pitt. Another stupid minor action scene had Pitt killing arms dealers with a shotgun. It didn't seem all that necessary to try and spice it up by being a clever action scene.

One thing the film was certain about was in its opinion of the IRA. The film definitely favored the IRA's way of thinking. The British agent we see far too little of, but we are given the impression he is nothing but evil. We should've seen more of the judge who is an IRA supporter, so we could have understood his motivations. There is a tacked on semi-romance we never see much of, and also a semi-friendship that the same can be said for. This friend must have been a great friend to Pitt or else his character would never have risked himself or Ireland for just one soul.

The ending was as unfulfilling as the rest of the movie. The film ended not too abruptly, but there was a lot left unfinished. Many characters and their actions were just ignored. There is a lot of the story that should still be following the Harrison Ford character. At the end we are still not sure about the character's motivations, and it feels like Harrison Ford may have just been committing an act of vengeance. Overall, this movie just needed focus. Usually I complain about films that tell us how we are supposed to feel, but this one keeps switching around so much, I didn't know how it wanted us to feel.

I should only give it two stars, but the two leads each have moments that by themselves make me have to raise it up one star.

This review was originally written on 4/14/97.