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The Order - 9/5/03 - R - 102m
Heath
Ledger - Alex Bernier
Shannyn Sossamon - Mara Sinclair
Mark Addy -Thomas Garrett
Director: Brain Helgeland
Screenplay by: Brain Helgeland
Studio: 20th Century
Official
Website
JEF
I was really looking forward to this film. I had heard about
its release after completing the book by Dan Brown called “The DaVinci
Code”. The book deals with secret societies, religion, science,
codes, mystery, etc… I loved the book, and when I saw that The Order
was being released and it seemed to have some similarities with the book
I was looking forward to seeing it. Boy was I disappointed.
Storyline: A priest named Alex Bernier (Heath Ledger) is part of a small
order of priests in the Catholic Church the Carolingians. This small group
(3 at first) is involved with the sort of unspoken evils, ghosts, the
undead, and exorcisms. The head of the order passes away and Alex leaves
the states and travels to Rome (with his girlfriend who tried to kill
him, and just escaped from an insane asylum) to “investigate”
his death. There he meets up with the other member of his order Father
Thomas Garrett (Mark Addy), and the two discover a mystery involved with
the possible murder of their mentor. They are then led on a twisting path
that involves the supernatural, and underground (literally) societies
that know about this being called the “Sin Eater”. I won’t
go into further detail because it does start to become confusing and a
little strange.
Well, as I mentioned, I really tried to like this film. It had a lot of
elements in it that I’m interested in, but the film was just a jumbled
mess. I had gotten a gift certificate to a local theatre from my Brother-In-Law
(Hi Doug) and decided to take a chance on this film with the gift certificate.
I had received words of warning from our guest reviewer Roblyn, that it
was not a good film. But I thought, maybe if I don’t have to pay
for the ticket myself, I’d be even more forgiving of the film, and
still enjoy it. I was wrong, and I wish now that I had used part of my
Bro’s gift on a better film.
Does the cast sound familiar? Heath Ledger, Mark Addy, Shannyn Sossamon
and directed by Brian Helgeland? They all worked together on the film
called “A Knight’s Tale” which although it has a certain
“Cheesy” factor I really enjoyed. So I thought I’d like
his style on this one too. Nope. The acting wasn’t too bad actually.
There was a rather intense scene with Heath and Shannyn, and I enjoyed
the comic relief of Mark Addy, but it just wasn’t enough.
The largest flaw of the movie is perhaps the storyline itself. It seemed
to try and incorporate a bunch of ideas, regarding the Church, Secret
Societies (of 3!), horror elements, and an odd twist of religious blaspheme.
The Sin Eater is a “man” who lives for thousands of years,
and is a sort of “back door” or loophole into heaven. Apparently
according to the story, if a person is not accepted via the Catholic Church,
for a violation of one of their many rules, then the Sin Eater can be
used to absolve or “eat” your sins away, and thus make it
possible to enter Heaven, a real practice in England according to dictionary.com.
But I just wasn’t buying it. The story was too far fetched, too
jumbled, and just didn’t flow.
The special effects were small and a little cool, but the scenes where
the sin eater was eating the “soul” or “sins”
the effect looked like a cross between the alien from the “abyss”
and the squids from the “Matrix” - Not very original.
The only good part to the film was that I enjoyed seeing Peter Weller
in his role. Yes the same Peter Weller who played Robocop. I also enjoyed
the scene in the cemetery where the priest is confronted by two “demons”
who appear to be children… that was kinda creepy.
I think this film could have been a very good film, and where exactly
it went wrong I can’t exactly say, but even with a strange concept
behind the storyline, and the talents of the actors, it just fell short.
I hate to point fingers, but I suspect the film fell apart in the hands
of the director Brian Helgeland.
Don’t waste your time on this one. I really wouldn’t even
recommend renting this one, unless you’re sure that your fast-forward
button works.
Jef
