The Rite


2/4

Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Colin O’Donoghue, Alice Braga, Ciaran Hinds, Toby Jones

Rated PG-13 for Disturbing Thematic Material, Violence, Frightening Images, and Language including Sexual References

Oddly enough, “The Rite” is the second film I’ve seen recently that takes a look at the line that divides faith and science, and that uses the subject of exorcism to explore it (the other film being the much-better “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”).  “Emily Rose” was everything a movie like this should be: creepy, interesting and provocative.  “The Rite,” however, is by turns ludicrous, moronic and boring (none of those being mutually exclusive).

Michael Kovacs (O’Donoghue) is a young man who has two choices: run the family funeral parlor or become a priest.  Wanting to get out of dodge, he chooses the latter.  But Michael, a skeptic, doesn’t think being a priest is for him, so in order to convince him to stay, a priest at the seminary (played by the much underrated Toby Jones) sends him to an exorcism course at the Vatican.  Even then, he’s still not persuaded, so the priest there, Father Xavier (Hinds) sends him to Father Lucas (Hopkins), an exorcist with rather unorthodox teaching methods.

The problem with the film is that it is really, really dumb.  Twenty minutes after meeting Father Lucas, Michael sees a possessed girl spit up iron spikes.  There’s no way anyone could come up with a rational explanation for that (Michael tries, but it’s a pathetic excuse).  Because the film has stacked the deck in one direction so early, we wait impatiently for this moron to get the picture.

The acting certainly doesn’t help matters.  As the lead character, O’Donoghue is bland.  He can’t even carry a scene where he doesn’t do anything, so to have him play off of the likes of Anthony Hopkins is a colossal mistake.  Even though Hopkins is in full “take the money and run” mode, he still causes O’Donoghue to disappear whenever he’s onscreen.  The only people worth noting are Alice Braga as a reporter/love interest and Ciaran Hinds, who's one of those character actors who is incapable of giving a bad performance.

It’s kind of hard to fault Mikael Hafstrom for the poor turnout of this flick.  He’s saddled with a lead actor who can’t act to save his life and a script that’s stupid and pretentious.  That being said, the film is poorly paced, and Hafstrom seems to think that the film is smarter than it actually is.  It’s not a total loss; even when he’s not trying, Hopkins is still fun to watch (particularly at the end), and it’s always nice to see Braga and Hinds even in lackluster movies like this.

Do yourself a favor, see the much better Tom Wilkinson picture, and rent something else that has Hopkins (anything), Braga (“City of God”) or Hinds (HBO’s brilliant series “Rome”) in it.

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