Rating: 
Summary: To either love or hate as a film
Review: The question is whether you're viewing this as a lover of Bacon's work or to enjoy what is simply a fascinating cult film in itself. A few of the intermittant shots are not the most original and the storyline might not be to all tastes, but the Jacobi-Craig clash and borderline humour of supporting characters combine for some wonderfully twisted dialogue that brings it alive! If you're aware that none of Bacon's work is on offer, and appreciate tongue-in-cheek humour of it's darkest type then you will love this film.
Rating: 
Summary: Portrait of the artist as an unpleasant man
Review: This film is about the famous painter Francis Bacon, specifically his relationship with his lover George. Francis meets George when George is breaking into his studio to rob it. Francis offers George a deal: he can have anything he wants if he sleeps with Francis. This marks the beginning of their tumultuous and unlikely relationship. Francis, although a famous and respected artist, is cold, sarcastic, and often cruel. Aside from George, his only other relationships seem to be a handful of artistic friends who occasionally hang out in pubs together and mostly take turns putting each other down. George, an uneducated boxer, obviously doesn't fit into this world at all. But it doesn't really matter at all to Francis, who sees him mostly as a sexual plaything, as opposed to a real partner. Surprisingly, George falls in love with Francis, and begins trying to win his attention and sympathy in increasingly self-destructive ways. Visually, this film is very true to Francis Bacon's paintings. It's full of imagery that suggests cages, pain, confusion and psychological torture. As a character study, this film suggests that Francis Bacon was just as disturbed and unpleasant as his paintings.
Rating:
Summary: After watching it I questioned its exisitence.
Review: Unlike many bio-pics which strain and ultimately hurt themselves trying to cover a person's entire life (or a great portion of it) Love Is the Devil takes the superior route and shows us a glimpse into Bacon's world. One's heart is not filled with warmth after watching Love is The Devil, which is fine with me, but in the end I felt nothing. The film's core is Jacobi's performance. Jacobi looks so much like Bacon it's eerie. He has his mannerisms and speech down to an almost clone-like degree. All of the performances are top notch and the photography is superb but the film lacks originality. Love Is The Devil is akin to reading the gossip papers. It's juicy but who cares? I don't feel any closer to Bacon's work having viewed this film. After watching it I questioned its exisitence. I couldn't help but wonder what makes spending the time to watch this film any better than using that time to look at Bacon's paintings or reading one of the many biographies written about him. Ultimately I found solace in Jacobi's amazing performance but little else. The DVD pressing is another concern. While it is prefable to the VHS edition it is flawed. Most of the muted colors are represented well but the blacks are not strong. Some of the fade in/outs did not transfer well. Strangely, the DVD features two trailers for other movies but nothing for Love Is The Devil. The soundtrack is fine.
Rating: 
Summary: Artistic Cliches and worse metaphors
Review: While the casting of Derek Jacobi for this film on Francis Bacon's tumultuous affair with George Dyer seemed promising, the film was bankrupt much on plot and they had no authority to show either the man or his work. Instead, they opted for this odd exercise in film interpretation and come up with some of the worse cliche's of madness and creativity: Bacon smearing himself with paint, looking at himself in fractured mirrors, George descending down a spiral staircase, looking at people through distorted barroom glass. These are all images pulled from other artist biographies obviously and seem to want to make the cooerlation that life is a distorted sewer and we're all Bacon's subjects. Oh please. We got that message in the first 10 minutes. Why continue?
That said - alot of the other imagery was beautiful and some of the camera techniques would have made for a better low budget movie on Bacon had they taken the time to invest in actual interesting script development, not images and vignettes. They did try to make an effort and draw a line between what the artist saw and how he painted. The problem was that this failed miserably, and Jacobi comes off as petty and comical.
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