The Sin Eater

source: The Sin Eater

The turgid pace of this movie numbs us to any shocks that it might provide. There was no real suspense. Most of the characters were insipid. The chesty Irish priest was as lame as the love interest. Interest is misleading. The girl that they chose to provide the film's sensuality might be better. The central conflict of the main character was uninvolving. This film is entirely devoid of positives. It is like a tedious exercise by someone who didn't want to go to the gym that day but did anyway.

This sorry excuse for a film reminded me a great deal of what I heard about "Gigli", that Ben and Jen flop earlier this Summer. "The Order" was clearly edited to such an unconscionable degree that the scenes, rather than forming a cohesive and provoking film, appeared to be a collection of disconnected sequences that did little to forward any semblance of a unified plot. Now, I'm a Heath Ledger fan ("10 Things I hate About You", "A Knight's Tale" and particularly his supporting role in "Monster's Ball"), but my man needs to find himself a better agent. Keep accepting scripts like "The Order" and "Four Feathers" and he's going to be on the fast track to movie oblivion. Here are the problems I had with the film. Firstly, the Director tried to make up for the inadequacies of his essential plot by introducing two other plot lines that seemingly had little if anything to do with, well, much of anything. Plot skeins involving the American trying to take over the Vatican and the Dark Pope, while mildly interesting, did nothing to reveal to the viewer anything about the main characters. The attempts to tie these threads together were pathetic at best. Secondly, please don't insult the intelligence of the viewer by inserting into the film scenes that are clearly obligatory. We had manufactured angst, manufactured love and most idiotically manufactured sex that seemed like a page right out of "Matrix Reloaded" with skull-numbing techno music. Rather than developing character, these elements seemed like the cheap devices they clearly were, a half-hearted attempt at putting popcorn-chewing adolescents in the seats. Thirdly, and most importantly, this movie seemed to ha ve an intriguing concept. We have scandal, we have religion and we have supernatural forces at play. Why then do we learn almost nothing about anyone's background? We learn a little about Alex, but even he gives up the passion of the priesthood to sleep with a woman after two days, a woman who tried to kill him during an exorcism at some point in the past. And Alex is the most developed, if you can call it that, character in the entire film. As the cliche goes nowadays, if you're going to see one movie this year, make sure it's not this one. There's about ten interesting minutes out of the intolerable 101 minute affair. The only thing that saved me was going with a girl who I'm rather fond of. 1 out of 10. I'm disappointed. File this one firmly under -had potential but blew it on over editing and bad directing-. Heath my man, go back to Monster's Ball-like cameos. They really suit you.

I shouldn't even review this movie, since it's not actually a horror movie -- and thus not worthy of Dr. Cheese's attention. At least, it's not horror in the usual sense. It's certainly a horrifying proposition to waste your time watching this crap. That's why I turned it off after the first four hours. Imagine my surprise, then, when the clock showed that only 45 minutes had passed. Yep, that's right; in plain terms, this movie is b-o-r-i-n-g. "The Order" had lots of flaws, not all of them unique. In particular, it seems to me the main problem with the "religious" subgenre of horror films is Hollywood's unwillingness to engage Christianity on its own terms. It is quite possible to make truly creepy films that are also orthodox. Just ask William Peter Blatty. In fact, without orthodoxy, films like this are just an anything-goes smorgasbord of the filmmakers' (usually dull and illogical) imaginations. Think about it. If someone made a movie ostensibly about, say, physics, but not only got the basic laws of physics wrong, but based the entire plot on its wrong portrayals, you would soon get tired of the resulting pointless plot. The same goes for these sorts of movies. In other words, "The Order"(and many similar movies before it) invent out of whole cloth stuff about the Catholic Church and about the Christian faith and attempt to build a plot out of these inventions. Unsurprisingly, the plot ends up being incoherent and stupid. This movie has the added charm of being as interesting to watch as your toenails growing. Avoid this steaming pile.

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT* Someone must have read an article on Sin Eating and thought, "Hey, this would make a cool movie." Little did they know that the act of one man eating a piece of demon filled bread off of another man's chest holds little entertainment value. Celibacy is a complete mystery to Hollywood. They cannot fathom why any man would want to give up sex when there are so many beautiful, beautiful women. Celibacy is almost blasphemous to Hollywood. It goes against everything they believe in. Therefore any priest in a movie must be conflicted\confused\distraught over his lack of female companionship. When I saw the princess from "A Knight's Tale" show up, I knew this priest wasn't going to last long on the Celibacy bandwagon. So "The Order" is another in a long line of hokey, Catholic Church bashing flicks pretending to be a horror thriller. Unfortunately, I saw little horror and almost no thrills. About midway through this movie I had to stop and ask myself: What the heck is this about? Is the priest investigating his mentor's death? Or does he want to jump the hot mental patient? And who are these guys with the hoods on their heads? The filmmakers must have shared my confusion because there were a lot of supernatural scenes that felt like they were added simply to give the rest of the flick a horror boost. The real point of "The Order" is to give the audience an overview on how to be a Sin Eater. See, you eat a piece of bread off of a sinner's chest. Then you sprinkle a little salt on it for demonic flavor and chow down on his sins. This lets the sinner get into heaven if the Catholic Church won't let him. It's a Sin Eating loophole. The filmmakers should have stopped and asked themselves, "Is that it? Have we got anything else but delicious sin eating?" The answer is no but they went ahead and made a movie anyway. Unless you are dying to see Sin Eating, I would avoid this one. The filmmakers were very confused about what kind of movie they wanted to make. You will be too.

::POTENTIAL SPOILERS:: Man, this movie was awful. A Catholic/superstitious/suspense thriller it goes over already well tread ground from previous movies. The doubting priest. Sex and the priesthood. Politics and religion. Church hypocrisy. Conspiracy involving the church. The dawn of a new evil age. All kinds of dark magic voodoo battles between good and evil. Pretty stupid and lame with a weak storyline to suffice. The story revolves around two concepts: Absolution, better known as the Sacrament of Anointing the Sick - the last rights a person can ask for to cleanse one's sins while on the brink of death; And Excommunication, the act of cutting a person off from the Church. Basically, an Excommunicated person can't receive Absolution. Thus comes in the Sin Eater, and I'll leave it at that. Throw in all the dopy things I already listed and you have "The Order". I found the sex scene with the priest interlaced with shots of a picture of the Virgin Mary rather insulting to Catholics. It also ends with Heath Ledger saying (I paraphrase) "I am the redeemer and damner of sins, I live on without love blah blah blah" /cue him walking in dark alley with long trench coat alla "The Matrix". I gave this movie a 1 for not only being crappy and unoriginal but also because it managed to insult an entire faith in the process. If you want to see something better I suggest "The Prophecy" with Christopher Walken.

While I won't say this is great cinema or even historically correct, it wasn't awful as the previous person who posted said it was. Yes there was a cult in a night club (Actually not pagan, it was an offshoot of the Catholic Church)and yes, the "hero" did bring it down, but that wasn't the point of the movie. The point of the movie was The Sin Eater was tired of doing his job and wanted the "hero" to do take over. Add that to the "hero's" struggle with his faith, his wants and desires and ultimately if he would like to take the place of the Sin Eater. According to the movie, if you are Catholic and not allowed to go to heaven,(Excommunicated, suicide or any of the other reasons the church could keep you out of heaven) the Sin Eater (for a price) would come and take away your sins and you would then be allowed to go to heaven. So, yes, it is a religious horror flick (though not really what I call Horror (like Freddy or Jason)) and yes, it is not great, but it is thought provoking if you like that kind of thing.

The good fellas at Webster's Dictionary define Logophobia as the ‘fear of words'. I may just be Logophobic. For no word combination scares me more than when at the beginning of a film, credits contain the words `Produced, Written and Directed by:', and are followed by a single individual's name. Think about it. There are carpenters, electricians and plumbers, but so few jack-of-all-trades. Even the most seasoned of directors like Speilberg and Scorsese rarely take such control of their films. But there I was, all nestled in my theatre seat, popcorn in hand and about to watch The Order when hurled at me like a Nolan Ryan fastball, were the words `Produced, Written and Directed by Brian Helgeland'. Whoa! Being a film buff, I knew of Brian Helgeland. As a writer his filmograpghy over the past 10 years would be graphed like a dotcom company's stock price in 1998. There were as many theatrical unpleasantries (Assassins, The Postman, Conspiracy Theory) as there were critical and award winning successes (L.A. Confidential, Mystic River). They seemed to alternate – one good, one bad, so knowing that his last film, BloodWork was one of the most wasted efforts in Clint Eastwood's career, I took a breath and hoped for the best. In retrospect, I should not have exhaled. The Order stars Heath Ledger (Helgeland's A Knights Tale), as Alex Bernier, a priest in an order known as the Carolingians, who is summoned to Rome when a fellow priest is killed under circumstances that the Arch Bishop deems ‘curious'. Meeting up with Father Thomas (also of the Order and played wonderfully by Still Standings' Mark Addy), they set out to piece together the riddle left behind in the wake of the priest's untimely death. Complicating matters is a sub plot involving Mara Sinclair (played by Shannyn Sossamon) who has escaped from an institution that was the result of her attempts to kill Alex during an exorcism. Alex has feelings towards Mara and for some reason unbeknownst to the audience, they travel to Rome together. Nary a good nights sleep goes by and Alex is confronted by William Eden (Benno Fürmann) who claims to be a centuries old Sin Eater. A Sin Eater, as we are told, are those that eat the sins of a dying individual when the church does not, thus allowing entrance into Heaven. William, as luck would have it, is tired of a life of healing and looks for Alex to take over his role and free him from his worldly duties. Alex is reluctant, but after the death of his new love Mara, Alex resorts to the ritual of the Sin Eater to save her and the transformation is complete. Alex then searches for answers to his many queries while Father Thomas unveils the Vatican plot behind the passing of authority to his fellow investigator. The Order is not a terrible film, but it is terribly boring. There were ridiculous special effects and no connection with any of the characters. Even in the most dramatic scene - that of Alex walking in on the dying Mara - is pale and bland and leaves us with no emotional response towards the couple's plight. Everybody seems to talk so quietly and unemotionally that the film flat lines and smelling salts could have been administered to keep me from trying to grab a quick nap in the middle of the film. So, Mr. Helgeland, I plead with you not to try this again. Share your vision with others and allow those more experienced to help direct you in directions that are not so narrow minded and self-serving. Until then, there is nothing emanating that shows you are capable of anything more than a failing grade. Two stars.

Certainly something different - a religious-based 'sci-fi' drama. Sin Eater, as it's known in UK, is a complicated story of love, fate, realisation, and a hint of gothic underworld religion thrown in. As Alex, the main character, is informed his mentor has died, he gets drawn into something which could alter his own destiny. Without wanting to give away the entire plot Sin Eater is a movie which takes risks - it's not afraid of its take on religion and is filmed with panache, boasts good performances, and some effective cinematography. Fine effort.

While perusing the other entries for this film, the preponderance of reviews giving it a mildly enthusiastic or at least average rating astounded me. I find it inconceivable how someone could appreciate this movie on any level. While it featured decent acting, it contained a plot so awful that it makes it impossible to respond with even the most minute degree of enthusiasm. The plot centers around a "Sin Eater," an individual who, by performing an arcane ritual, is able to secure salvation for those outside the church who would otherwise go to Hell. While operating in this capacity he is immortal, but he has grown weary of bearing the sins of others and desires to find a replacement so that he may die in peace. He attempts to cultivate a young priest for this role, and the film deals with the ensuing events. While I have no desire to express an opinion here on theological issues in real life, I found it preposterous that, within the world of this film, salvation really does come only through the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Though the movie depicts the Church in the most unfavorable way possible, within its frames the Church alone apparently truly does hold the key to salvation. This fact necessitates the burdensome task of the sin eater, and thereby establishes the premise of the film. But it also raises questions about how anyone (in the film) exposed to such a wicked Church or God could accept the doctrine that salvation comes no other way. A person who believed that salvation came through the Church alone would likely be a member of the Church, and adhere to its teachings; someone outside the Church would not likely believe that the Church alone provided salvation. Yet for the sin eater to function, The Order's cinematic world must be populated by many people who both: a) believe that the teachings of the Church are entirely correct, and b) reject those teachings nonetheless. Ultimately, The Order depicts hapless clergy and laity alike, viciously excluded from salvation by a tyrannical Church which regards not even God's power as sufficient to overcome their deeds. If anything, this movie offers an unintentional apologetic for the Protestant doctrine of salvation by faith alone. Watch this movie with friends and laugh, or don't watch it at all.