Great Film: The Sin Eater (The Order)
There is a brilliant film trapped in here somewhere.
Although I really, really liked this movie, I must admit it's not for
everyone, and here's why. The Order encompasses one or two intriguing
ideas gone a bit awry.
A priest (played by Heath Ledger) is called upon to investigate the
apparent suicide of his mentor, and uncovers the mystery of an ancient
being, the Sin Eater, who is able to absolve the sins of those
(unrepentant sinners, excommunicated persons, suicides) a normal
Catholic priest would be unable to forgive due to church dogma. The
knowledge of this creature forces the priest to face his own conflicted
feelings about the priesthood. Before he has even begun to sort out his
confusion, the larger plot begins to unravel and he finds that he has
been at the center of it for longer than he had ever realized.
Well, it would have been excellent if left at that and fleshed out for
the 100-minute duration, but it was not to be. The best bits of turmoil
and conflict, of passion and temptation and surrender, were skimmed
through so quickly it seemed as if someone thought they were the
annoying-but-necessary bits when they should have been the real meat of
the film. The rest was a clogged up mess of random (and inexplicable)
demon children, a power-hungry cardinal, and worst of all: a love
interest who had absolutely no chemistry with the main character, an
accent that was completely out of place, a confusingly pointless back
story, and who seemed incongruous with the setting and plot. Sadly,
there were very few shots of the film's locations, only one wide shot
of Rome in fact, which could have been used to set the tone much more
effectively than all those shadows and candlelight.
That all said, there were many redeeming features. The soundtrack was
hit-and-miss, but more hit than miss and at least it was never
distracting. The duo of Ledger and Mark Addy was charming and the
chemistry between Ledger's character and "William Eden" (played by
Benno Fürmann) was sizzling. That adversarial relationship should have
been the focus of the film rather than a sort of easter egg hunt during
bits of the second half, but it was more than enough for me to consider
this movie an hour and a half well spent.
Cast
- Mara Sinclair played by Shannyn Sossamon
- Alex Bernier played by Heath Ledger
- Thomas Garrett played by Mark Addy
- William Eden played by Benno Fürmann
- Bookstore Owner played by Richard Bremmer
- Apathetic Bishop played by Mattia Sbragia
- Driscoll played by Peter Weller
