User Reviews

It is not a coincidence that the 2 words "painless" and "penniless" resemble each others. Pain makes our greatness, no doubt about that. However, in today's world, some people just proved the opposite. This movie comes to say that very meaning with good intentions, talking - in rare time - about many writers who have big success out of soulless works. It didn't forget to mention the big yet empty Hollywood blockbusters also, that earn millions while not saying a thing, or be totally forgotten later. Selling without soul does sound like selling the soul for what end up as cheaper matters in comparison. So would you live paradise on earth without soul? Well, the real question is: could you? Obviously (The Devil and Daniel Webster), based on short story by Stephen Vincent Benet and directed / starred by Alec Baldwin, is another Faust that asks, and answers that, yet done so poorly.

Defending this movie is a lost cause. It seemed like a long episode of (Amazing Stories), and without the wit of that show too. Baldwin did direct it lifelessly and tastelessly. The important situations were done non-importantly (The agreement's scene for little instance). For one, so unfortunate, time I witnessed Anthony Hopkins acting badly, OH MY GOD, the great man was doing his job indifferently like it's a cold rehearsal all along. You have to suspect, or be sure, that this is an outcome for the "no" efforts of the man behind the camera this round. Baldwin must have been shy to direct the Hopkins himself!

Jennifer Love Hewitt was unbelievably miscast to historical extent. I mean WHY???!!!!! If the devil is that awful, then fighting it would be so easy job! The moment of her saying: "When was the last time you woke up on the bed with a girl like **me**?!" is whether a hint about Baldwin as a virgin, or it is one of the most comic moments ever (I know that I laughed a lot after it!).

Yes, there are some smart points, like transforming the contract into sex. But the death of the friend, the second friend, was a bit fabricated or just too metaphoric (the end of the true writer inside the lead?). Then the stroke. The major pain. The basic nonsense. And I do mean the climactic sequence. While being the movie's highest point at all, it has the poorest acting, directing, and writing. Surely the speech of Hopkins's character didn't persuade me even for a second, the devil's one was stronger and truer. As you see, this movie doesn't know how to save its lead, or itself!

As I read, after filming was completed in 2001, the movie has been shelved for nearly 6 years, due to the lack of funds. And after coming into the possession of Bob Yari Productions, it was extensively re-edited, to not bear any resemblance to its original form or to Benet's story. Therefore, Baldwin has since requested that his name be removed from the credits as a director and producer. According to what I watched, I couldn't agree more! So whatever it's Baldwin's, Bob Yari Productions', or even the devil's fault, the weak effect that (Shortcut to Happiness) achieved, especially after so pale and unexplained finale, does make you remember it - at best - as "not bad" movie. There weren't enough elements to eventually call it "good". Simply, good intentions can't make a good movie alone.

You can't help wondering how many times this story has been told in print, on stage, and in film. Weren't there independent redintegrations of this Medieval plot by Marlowe and Goethe? This version comes to us from Steven Vincent Benet and Archibald MacLeash, updated to the current time. It's entertaining still but all very familiar.

Alec Baldwin is a luckless, penniless, sexless unpublished author who just can't catch a break like his college Dan Aykroyd, who has written a highly successful novel, "A Feeling of Loss." All he has are a few fellow sufferers like Barry Miller, who is always willing to tell Baldwin the truth about his writing.

An agent, Anthony Hopkins, tells him to write better but Baldwin is going berserk. Back in his shabby apartment he cries out that he'd sell his soul to succeed. Enter Jennifer Love Hewitt as a sexy devil. She gives him the success he pines for. Cabs stop magically to pick him up out of a crowd. An editor, Kim Cattrall, reads his manuscript and decides its worth a first printing of 100,000. That's a lot. You're lucky to get 5,000. But she insists on a few changes. Baldwin agrees, even though the alterations turn his work into the kind of trash that sells. It begins with the title, "A Loss of Feeling." Of course it's a ripoff of Aykroyd's book, "A Feeling of Loss," but that's the point. There follow a number of sequels. "A Feeling of Greater Loss," or something, winding up with "A Certain Numbness In the Extremities." That's pretty funny.

Alas, there is a long courtroom scene at the end in which Hopkins defends Baldwin and Hewitt is the prosecutor. The trial is a fantasy. The jury consists of departed writers like Ernest Hemingway and Dorothy Parker. I don't know how this scene was originally written but here it comes across as maundering and uninventive. "This is the world God gave us," Hewitt orates. Smooth violins in the background tell us that this is all very important, in case we didn't get it. I think it's mush. "Death -- well, death gives us a chance to sum up our lives." Baldwin directed this and there's nothing wrong with his work, either as director or actor. Anthony Hopkins is a remarkable actor. He convinces us with such little effort, even when the lines he's forced to read are idiotic. Hewitt is a bit of an embarrassment among the pros. She looks and sounds like a pretty young girl in a high school production. It's hard to pin down just where she goes wrong, but, by contrast, we can check out Kim Cattrall in the part of the shallow and sexy editor. Hewitt looks cute, while Cattrall projects a sleek kind of professionalism.

I kind of enjoyed the film except for the last twenty minutes when it bogged down into seriousness. It should have remained the up-tempo screwball comedy that it started out as. Frank Capra would have done wonders with it back in the 30s.

DIRECTION: 1/10 -/- SCREENPLAY: 3/10 -/- VISUALS: 5/10 -/- STORY: 5/10

The movie itself reminds me of 'Bedazzled' more than Faust. It's the same base story with a very bad selection of actors.

The ACTORS are great normally, but this is clearly not their role. Miss Love Hewitt and Mr. Hopkins were all right, but they definitely won't name this movie as their favorite.

I could also tell who THE DIRECTOR was before checking it (Alec Baldwin of course). He is too busy looking handsome and that kind of ruins his screenplay. I usually like his acting but this was dreadful.

He made his own character go out with hot young chicks, the Devil's contract was a kiss and a lovemaking, I mean come on, at least don't be this pathetic as an old man. :(

The STORY itself is a bit weird but not so bad, the side stories however are much worse, we only meet the secondary characters once or twice, we don't really know what kind of people they are, we usually only see Mr. Baldwin struggling, crying, smiling, yelling, confused... so the characters were really not detailed.

I would love to read the book or watch a remake with a REAL DIRECTOR and with a better actor for the main character.

Was a real disappointment for me, I have lost all my remaining respect for Mr. Baldwin.

I had high hopes for it when I heard that it was being made back in 2001 because I read "The Devil and Daniel Webster" when I was a kid and I found it very interesting. They made some changes to the story that don't make much sense to me. Daniel Webster in the story was a famous lawyer from New Hampshire in the story. In the movie he is an editor. A lawyer makes more sense since he ends up representing Jabez Stone against the devil him/herself (he was a man in the story, but was a woman in the movie) in a trial where both of their souls are on the line. As an editor, it doesn't seem likely that Daniel Webster would have the skill to do this.

The acting was decent by all except for Alec Baldwin and Dan Aykroyd. These are two actors that I like, they just did an awful job in this movie. It was as though they thought they were acting in a comedy, but the movie was more a serious one than a comedy. This might be partly due to the fact that the movie was filmed with a particular vision in mind, and was then re-edited by somebody else. Given this fact, it's surprising that it was at all coherent. I was surprised to see a fair amount of SNL cast members in the movie, which further leads me to believe it may have originally been filmed with the intention of it being more of a comedy.

All in all I would have to say it wasn't completely awful, but it wasn't much good. If I could get the hour and a half back and do something else with it, I would. The ending was especially disappointing. As in the original story, Daniel Webster defeats the devil in the trial. Jabez then starts out again at the beginning of the movie...literally, we are just brought back to the first scene with Jabez, and then the movie abruptly ends. It actually looked as though they just replayed Jabez' first scene over and called it the end. There is no indication that Jabez has the benefit of any of the knowledge or experience he gained, so who is to say he didn't just repeat his mistakes over again, and perhaps over and over in an endless loop? It was an extremely disappointing end and did not make a lot of sense. The decent cast, and the acting of everyone except for Baldwin and Aykroyd are the only things that keep this from being a complete and total crap sandwich.