The Order Movie Review:


When his mentor Dominic (Carnelutti) is found dead in Rome, Priest Alex Bernier (Ledger) is sent by Cardinal Driscoll (Weller) to investigate. Asking his friend Thomas (Addy) to help, the two Carolingian priests, an old order that investigates the paranormal for the Catholic Church, set out to find out how Dominic died. The method of death points to a six hundred year old myth a Sin Eater (Furmann). This man had the power of complete absolution, granting anyone entrance into heaven whatever their sin, as he would bear the burden of that terrible act. The question was why would he kill an old priest who should have no sins to forgive?

A decent sounding plot, a good cast most of which have worked together before and a writer director who has growing reputation, what could go wrong? Everything.

Most of the cast and crew behind the hit A Knights Tale return but gone is the sense of fun and adventure we had in the first collaboration and replacing it is a complete mess of a supernatural, religious drama. Plotlines are introduced and never resolved, the supernatural is shown but never explained and the reasons behind the entire Carolingian order and the Sin Eater himself, are not truly completely explored.

This is the movie’s major failing, you just don’t know what is going on. Back-stories are only faintly touched upon so you don’t really have an understanding of where the plotlines are coming from or going. This leads to a lot of confusion is the first and second acts of the film. The ending tries to clarify some of the points but you still have more questions than you do answers. Who are the demon people, what is the Black Pope going to do when he gains power, what is the real reason behind Mara trying to kill Alex and why is Alex chosen? All these questions and more are posed and never answered.

The cast is strong which is the most disappointing thing. Heath Ledger is an upcoming lead actor that has the star power to carry a movie when the script is up to it. Shannyn Sossamon is a fine actress, Mark Addy is just as good at drama as he is comedy and Peter Weller is as watchable as ever. German actor Benno Furmann shows he has the potential to make it in the US but making his debut in a movie like this might not get him the start he wished for even though he plays a good villain.

The Sin Eater is a complete mess of a movie. Whether this lies with writer/director Brian Helgeland or the studio we will never know but in its current state it is incomprehensible, confusing and a frustrating missed opportunity. Somewhere there is a decent movie trying to get out of this jumbled chaos and I hope it manages to appear later at some point because the cast and the director do deserve more than this.

Star Rating = * *

Jamie Kelwick

Originally titled The Sin Eater, The Order follows the same religious supernatural notions of such films as Lost Souls (2000), The Third Miracle (1999), and Stigmata (1999), however this film is far more dismal production. In fact this film is nearly as poor as another supernatural thriller, The Ninth Gate (1999), which was one of the worst films of the year 2000. The Order is just a wasteful, boring, and messy film that’s content will once again anger the Catholic Church.

The somewhat of a story follows a young and questionable priest named Alex (Heath Ledger), who with his good friend Father Thomas (Mark Addy) are the only two living members of their order called the Carolinians. Alex and Thomas were trained to fight off demons, ghosts, and all evil in the world by exorcism among other means. When Alex’s mentor unexpectedly dies in Rome, he is called upon to investigate. Along with Father Thomas, Alex is accompanied by Mara (40 Days, 40 Night’s Shannyn Sossamon), who is a past exorcism victim of his that has recently escaped from a mental hospital. As the clues come together, Alex realizes that his mentor was killed by a “sin-eater” named Eden (Benno Furmann). A “sin-eater” is an immortal being who consumes the sins of a person before they die in a sacred ritual, so that the person may enter heaven, instead of going to hell for their sins. Eden is the last “sin eater” on Earth and he is over 500 years old. As Alex begins to get closer to finding the “sin-eater,” he realizes that he is deeply involved in a plan of the unexpected.

Writer/director Brian Helgeland, who actually won a Oscar for co-writing L.A. Confidential (1997), created this vague story and got his cast from A Knight’s Tale (Heath Ledger, Shannyn Sossamon, and Mark Addy) back to play the lead roles. Paul Bettany must have been to busy with his role in Master and Commander (2003), or just did not want to play the part of the “sin-eater” Eden. Helgeland attempts to bring many historic religious aspects, explanations, and theories to the script, but none help the film. The script just becomes more lost as each plot point (or supposed plot point) is unraveled. The whole secrecy of the film is not expected at first, but once Alex begins having conversations and beverages with the “sin-eater,” the outcome is predictable. An example of the characters’ blunt ticks includes Father Thomas referring to Alex as “Spaghettio” throughout the film. The script also has weak dialogue, such as after Alex battles with some demons, he tells Thomas, “nothing that I couldn’t handle.” Alex also has no problem of walking into the morgue, sneaking out with his mentor’s body, and then burying him with no one forcefully questioning him. A few of the film’s demons are disguised as children, with the hope of scaring the wits out of the audience, perhaps the way the two twin girls from The Shining (1980) did. However, these children were not scary, in which Helgeland struggles so much to get a jump out of the audience, that he relies on the stereotypical crazed Rotwelier jumping out of the shadows at Alex. Besides also trying to stir up some controversy with some of the film’s Catholic church members seen as bad guys, The Order is also full of talkative and religious hoop-la that does not serve as much backbone. Visually, the film is very dark, rainy, with hardly any streams of light in attempts to be mysterious.

Heath Ledger is a leading star, but he just does not have much to work with as Alex, whose background is hinted around, but never revealed. Shannyn Sossamon also seems absent with her performance and does not share one bit of convincible chemistry with Ledger, who she is supposedly in love with. Mark Addy shows up as Ledger’s comedic sidekick priest that curses, cuts deals with Pagan loyalists, and also fights demons. Peter Weller arises as the Cardinal that assigns Ledger’s character to the case. Lastly, German actor Benno Furmann plays the elegant “sin-eater” that somehow grows from a boy to a GQ type model in 500 years, when the “sin-eater” actually is not suppose to age. Go figure.

The Order is just another wanna-be supernatural thriller with religious aspects that attempts to be chilling and stylish like The Seventh Sign (1988) or The Exorcist (1973). The film is actually just a huge mess, nothing really works, and takes the place as one of Hollywood’s worst films of the year.

Grade: F

Joseph C. Tucker

A film review by
BlackEye

The Order of the Knights of Columbus

Attention all Goths! Attention all Goths! This film is for you! Gather some shrooms and ingest them prior viewing. They should kick in by the psychedelic scenes. If not, you may be in for a long movie, although the sets will be right up your basement. At least consume a sinful amount of salty, greasy popcorn.

It’s a Katholic epic (big shots of Euro exteriors and interiors) with a small cast to keep costs down. A Spaghetti Scripture Western so to speak. At least most of the artisan’s who worked on the production have last names ending with a vowel. This format makes it hard for conventional critics to understand the plot. It’s not that complicated. It’s like an episode of Millennium from the second season during a week when Frank Black (no relation to this reviewer) was out sick.

If you think this film leaves logic in the lurch, imagine what the real Katholic church is like. The Horror! At first, I thought this was a prequel to the upcoming Mel Gibson thorn fest about the origins of “real” Katholicism. After reading pages of commentary in the New York Times recently, I found out I was mistaken. The basis of this film is actually sane compared to the delusional, overpopulating patriarch Gibson’s passion play. But back to “reality.”

The Order consists of Friar Tuck (Mark Addy) with an eye for the ladies, and not for choirboys (a strange twist in character development to say the least), Heath Ledger as the boy wonder, and an Old Man (with cycling stunts done by super Mario Cipollini). The Mentor succumbs to the evil behind the shaking door while a couple of the children of the damned look on, and we are left with only 2 adherents in the whole world and they are Latin speaking non-Latinos from separate parishes. Or are they? At least there was enough lira, not given over to sex victim extortionists, to pay the airfare for the 2 remaining orderlies and Angela Jolie’s stunt double, Shannyn Sossamon as Mara, just escaped from a mental institution for trying to kill her savior, Legerdemain. Huh? No time for shopping with Winona. The trio even gets the blessing of the “Kardinal who would replace Karol” played with oily savvy by Robocop hisself, Peter Weller as the Nazi Ratzinger. Go figure.

Of course our hero, Heathcliff, would have a personal relationship with the man who has the inside track on the Vicar of Roma position, and he just happened to show up in Rome at the same time as our three stooges. After last weekend’s failed performance in Slovakia, the Pope looked like the poster boy for the legalization of euthanasia. Maybe this film had something to do with pushing him to the brink. At least the part of the “Dark One’s “ assistant, played in drag by an unaccredited Sinead O’Connor on steroids, may have been enough.

Without giving away the whole creepy plot, suffice it to say, the main topic is sin eating. Not Richard Thomas in a Twilight Zone episode. Not Bill Bennett at an all-you-can-eat casino buffet. Not Antonin Scalia inhaling attorneys. But official, pre-modern (post Gibson) Katholic rituals from the catacombs. The practice that confers the orgasm of relief to the sinner and psycho-nausea to the eater. The special effects required to represent the transaction of a rookie sin eater eating the sins of a 400 year-old sin eater was a budget buster. Distributed by Fox, the company that is owned by major sinner, Rupert Murdoch and features small screen sinner Bill O’Reilly, this film has the cloak of irony and metaphor. Fox even kept the preview confidential from the L.A. critics. Strange, eh Brian?

Go see this movie, so the producers can afford more grandiose effects in the sequel. Imagine the Matrix More Reloaded-like fireworks when Heath Ledger has to eat the copious, gluttonous piles of sin from the bowels of Dick Cheney and Ronald Dumsfeld! Yum!!! Remember, “Knowledge is the enemy of faith.” And, after viewing last Sunday’s Meet the Press, it’s apparently the enemy of the current U.S. Administration as well. Now that’s scary!

Copyright 2003
By T R Black

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