Devil

Devil recently possessed theaters as the newest motion picture to be loudly stamped with the now dubious brand of M. Night Shyamalan. This time around, Shyamalan explores the oft-pondered question: What happens when five people get trapped in an elevator, and one of them might be the devil?

An objective viewer of Shyamalan’s recent movies could expect terrible things from Devil, and in that case, it exceeds expectations. Devil is certainly not laugh-out-loud awful like the stunningly entertaining The Happening. Devil is, in fact, solidly mediocre. The filmmakers rely a bit too much on turning off the lights and throwing in muffled sound effects, something any grade-school filmmaker could do in his garage. The scenes cut periodically to external shots of the skyscraper, with storm clouds swelling and a chorus of trombones belaboring the point with an absurd degree of pomposity. The one black character drops lines like, “Give me another reason to kick yo’ ass” and even, “Ahh hell no!” Most damning, though, is the acting style, which unerringly avoids emotion like, well, the devil. This foils any attempt to actually care about these people, so that when they start dying, you might dismiss them with a casual, “Well, there goes another one.”

That said, there are some successes: a well-developed atmosphere and a somewhat compelling storyline about the detective (Chris Messina) who, while trying to resolve the situation, is coming to terms with the killing of his family. Devil also looks at issues of guilt and taking responsibility for one’s actions. I would have liked to see more exploration of the existential issues raised by being trapped in an elevator, but who wants to be weighed down by intellectual discussion when there’s blood to be spilled?

There’s plenty to criticize, but I can’t shake a vaguely positive attitude towards Devil. If you hanker for some supernatural thrills and can accept a script and cast that compete in flatness with a dead man’s heart rate, you can have a good time with this movie. More importantly, though, it’s really not as bad as The Happening.