Review of Devil

In 1999, a rookie young director by the name of M. Night Shyamalan released a movie called The Sixth Sense . The success of that film made him a household name but it also introduced his style of storytelling. That style involves the use major plot twists and generally a huge surprise finale. While his last couple of films have not used that style and have been rather mediocre, this new movie allows him to return to those roots. Now granted in this film he serves only as writer and producer, and I think that he is also the narrator, it is hard to not consider this film an M. Night Shyamalan film.

The basic concept of Devil is pretty simple. The tagline of the film is dubbed as “bad things happen for a reason”. The story centers around five strangers sharing an elevator in a Philidelphia highrise. What ends up happening without spoiling anything is that they eventually become trapped in the elevator and then weird stuff starts occuring. Long story short they quickly realize along with the building secuity forces and police wathcing them through the elevator camera, that supernatural forces are being played here. Basically the devil is among the passengers.

Now has I mentioned before, it is hard to not consider this film not and M. Night Shyamalan film. He did not direct the movie. But here is why I consider this film his movie. While watching this movie you do not realize that he did not direct it. If you have seen all of his movies before you can recongnize his style of not just storytelling, but also of the pace of the action, the quickness of the editing, and also the intelligence of the writing. Also you notice the perfect timing of the suspense and the thrills that usually come at very unsuspecting intervals. This movie has all of these features and even though this movie was directed by John Ewick Dowdle, the guy who directed Quarantine , you would believe that Shyamalan must have also served as a co-director.

Shyamalan has definately returned to his roots with this first rate thriller. It is intelligently written, which allows the suspense and thrills to come when the timing is just right. As mentioned before this movie does have the expected Shyamalan story twists and turns, and yet the work successfully which in so doing elevate this movie to greatness. The plot twists of course revolve around the characters as the actions of the story unfold. Soon we begin to find out the reasons why they are in that elevator. So I do not spoil anything, I will leave it at that. But in all honesty, Devil is a first class thriller. It is one of those rare thrillers that is actually for the most part intelligently written. Generally what kills a lot of films of this genre, it the writing. The writing is done in a way that causes the film to be predictable and pretty much not thrilling or suspenseful. This film succeeds in being a great thriller simply because of the writing. In the end it is a film that is well worth the time and money and when all is said and done, it is a redemption of sorts for Mr. Shyamalan.

By Adam Miller, Movies Correspondent and Associate Producer for The RPM Show. You can learn more about Devil, past, present, and future movies, or anything about the world of entertainment by visiting The RPM Show (www.therpmshow.com) and listening to the broadcasts.