"Daniel and the Devil" ("The Devil and Daniel Webster"; "All That Money Can Buy") is a great film in many respects, with a fable-like moral that is certainly timeless and universal. And yet, it is also a distinctly, profoundly American film, capturing with rare directness something of the true founding spirit of the United States. To this effect, it is a deeply patriotic movie-- not in the sense of the blind jingoism or arrogant self-aggrandizement so often seen in Hollywood films, but in the sense of a film that understands patriotism as a constant need for vigilance, an ethical and political struggle that began with the Revolutionary War and that continues up to the present day. At its crux, "Daniel and the Devil" argues that the greatest enemies of civil liberty are institutionalized avarice and economic oppression, an age-old, common-sense message that has become alarmingly rare, especially today, in 2001, when Ol' Scratch himself can just about be spotted strolling around the Oval Office.
Review of The Devil and Daniel Webster
