So Macho! He's got to be So Macho!
Sep. 15th, 2003 04:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyOn Saturday night the wench & I were invited to see Sinitta. Now I can get down to cheesy Stock, Aitken & Waterman 80's disco pop with the best of them, but after the first half hour passed without any renditions of 'So Macho' or 'Toy Boy', I suddently realised that we'd actually gone to the cinema to see The Sin Eater: an extremely shabby and unconvincing Theological thriller.
Possibly the worst film I've seen in quite some time, I felt I had to share it with you. Cognoscenti of bad films will find much in this film to love, and people who like entertainment won't.
On paper, this film must have looked like a great idea; which probably explains how they got some of the talent invloved. However, the execution is a poor, predictable thriller with few surprises overlaid by a fairly sketchy knowledge of religion.
Heath Ledger plays Alex, a New York Catholic priest who is one of the last three members of the Carolingians, an obscure branch of the Catholic Church, who seem to deal heavily with exorcisms. One day he receives a visit from Peter (Robocop) Weller (playing a chainsmoking cardinal) who informs him that his old teacher and head of his order has committed suicide in odd circumstances and who suggests Alex heads off to Rome to look into the death.
In Rome, Ledger meets the other surviving member of his order (The Full Monty's Mark Addy), who plays a heavy drinking but completely focussed exorcist and the two set out to investigate the death.
From what is a fairly promising start, the film takes your suspension of disbelief and tests it to the very limits. The two stumble on not only conspiracies within the heart of the church, but also demons and ghosts, occultists, and immortals. They witness cold blooded murder, but don't bother to try and prevent it nor do they mention it to the police (and they are priests, remember) and when they come under assault by the undead (in a sequence in which Mark Addys character has nails driven into his body by a ghost), nobody ever asks how he came to be injured, and the police take no interest in a serious assault on a member of the clergy. Presumably this sort of thing happens all the time in Rome.
Several times the two characters come under attack from supernatural forces, but never is there any explaination why, other than the fact they are exorcists and so this viewer assumes them to have made enemies from beyond the grave at some point. When or how is never told. Perhaps that's just what happens to exorcists. However, you shouldn't worry about this, because it has nothing at all to do with the plot except to remove Mark Addys character at a critical moment. For all I know Rome is riddled with Ghosts and Goblins ready to knock inquisitive priests on the head when they look like helping out any passing doomed heroes.
The plot itself centres around a man called the 'Sin Eater', who apparently has the power to absolve the dying from their sins even if they are not part of the established Catholic Church. Naturally the Catholic Church object to this sort of thing, because it means that even heretics and people who have been excommunicated to get into Heaven without them getting involved. At no point during the film is any mention made that Martin Luther said the same thing more than four hundred years ago, and so why this 'Sin Eater' even needs to exist is completely glossed over.
Sin Eating, however, apparently renders one immortal and the current holder of the position is getting heartily sick of eternal life and wants to pass the mantle to someone else - and the only way to do so is to pass the Sins he has Eaten onto another incumbent, which Heath Ledger's Alex has apparently been raised to be. Once again, why it has to be him is never explained as there don't seem to be any particular qualifications for the role other than a willingness to take it on, but Alex it has to be and the current holder goes to great - if not absurd - lengths to ensure he takes the role. Bearing in mind that the position seems to confer immortality and immense wealth you wouldn't think there would be too many problems finding a replacement, but it seems not.
The only way for Ledger to take the role is to stab the current Sin Eater to death in the middle of St Peters Basilica in the centre of the Vatican, which is filled with tourists and he is duly tricked into doing with a plan so paper thin that you expect someones mask to fall off and reveal Old man Willikins the fairground owner. However, nobody seems to really mind when he carries out the killing, and once again the famously elusive Italian police remain staunchly away from cold blooded murder in a public place. They must get a lot of practice, judging from this film. Or maybe the scriptwriter didn't realise they have police in Italy. I don't know. Nor do I care. And nor will you.
There's a lot going on in this film, and sadly none of it makes sense. Undead and Ghosts pop up at random and attack the characters like wandering monsters in a badly run Dungeons and Dragons game, Peter Wellers character - despite being 'a front runner to become the next pope' - has no problem with letting Ledger and Addy know that he's a murdering Satanist, and Alex falls in love (and loses his priesthood through shagging) a girl who earlier shot him for reasons that are never explained, but may be due to her being possessed by the devil. Then again, it may not. We're never really told. When, later in the film this girl tops herself and Alex undergoes a crisis because as a priest he can't save her soul, it was all I could do to restrain myself from shouting "Become a Protestant! Foreswear the lies of Rome!" in my best Ian Paisley accent as doing this would remove any moral trauma from the scene and, in fact, kill the whole plot stone dead on the spot.
And it would have been a better film for it.
It's a beautiful film, I give it that. The locations are great and Rome looks fantastic. However, as a film it's such a mess. People act just to advance the plot, and believable characterisation never gets a more than a foot in the door before being rudely shoved aside by the script moving to the next set piece. It's got some great actors, none of whom are allowed to be great. It's got some good ideas, but picking holes in Catholicism has been done far better in Dogma, and really, you should just see that.
Possibly the worst film I've seen in quite some time, I felt I had to share it with you. Cognoscenti of bad films will find much in this film to love, and people who like entertainment won't.
On paper, this film must have looked like a great idea; which probably explains how they got some of the talent invloved. However, the execution is a poor, predictable thriller with few surprises overlaid by a fairly sketchy knowledge of religion.
Heath Ledger plays Alex, a New York Catholic priest who is one of the last three members of the Carolingians, an obscure branch of the Catholic Church, who seem to deal heavily with exorcisms. One day he receives a visit from Peter (Robocop) Weller (playing a chainsmoking cardinal) who informs him that his old teacher and head of his order has committed suicide in odd circumstances and who suggests Alex heads off to Rome to look into the death.
In Rome, Ledger meets the other surviving member of his order (The Full Monty's Mark Addy), who plays a heavy drinking but completely focussed exorcist and the two set out to investigate the death.
From what is a fairly promising start, the film takes your suspension of disbelief and tests it to the very limits. The two stumble on not only conspiracies within the heart of the church, but also demons and ghosts, occultists, and immortals. They witness cold blooded murder, but don't bother to try and prevent it nor do they mention it to the police (and they are priests, remember) and when they come under assault by the undead (in a sequence in which Mark Addys character has nails driven into his body by a ghost), nobody ever asks how he came to be injured, and the police take no interest in a serious assault on a member of the clergy. Presumably this sort of thing happens all the time in Rome.
Several times the two characters come under attack from supernatural forces, but never is there any explaination why, other than the fact they are exorcists and so this viewer assumes them to have made enemies from beyond the grave at some point. When or how is never told. Perhaps that's just what happens to exorcists. However, you shouldn't worry about this, because it has nothing at all to do with the plot except to remove Mark Addys character at a critical moment. For all I know Rome is riddled with Ghosts and Goblins ready to knock inquisitive priests on the head when they look like helping out any passing doomed heroes.
The plot itself centres around a man called the 'Sin Eater', who apparently has the power to absolve the dying from their sins even if they are not part of the established Catholic Church. Naturally the Catholic Church object to this sort of thing, because it means that even heretics and people who have been excommunicated to get into Heaven without them getting involved. At no point during the film is any mention made that Martin Luther said the same thing more than four hundred years ago, and so why this 'Sin Eater' even needs to exist is completely glossed over.
Sin Eating, however, apparently renders one immortal and the current holder of the position is getting heartily sick of eternal life and wants to pass the mantle to someone else - and the only way to do so is to pass the Sins he has Eaten onto another incumbent, which Heath Ledger's Alex has apparently been raised to be. Once again, why it has to be him is never explained as there don't seem to be any particular qualifications for the role other than a willingness to take it on, but Alex it has to be and the current holder goes to great - if not absurd - lengths to ensure he takes the role. Bearing in mind that the position seems to confer immortality and immense wealth you wouldn't think there would be too many problems finding a replacement, but it seems not.
The only way for Ledger to take the role is to stab the current Sin Eater to death in the middle of St Peters Basilica in the centre of the Vatican, which is filled with tourists and he is duly tricked into doing with a plan so paper thin that you expect someones mask to fall off and reveal Old man Willikins the fairground owner. However, nobody seems to really mind when he carries out the killing, and once again the famously elusive Italian police remain staunchly away from cold blooded murder in a public place. They must get a lot of practice, judging from this film. Or maybe the scriptwriter didn't realise they have police in Italy. I don't know. Nor do I care. And nor will you.
There's a lot going on in this film, and sadly none of it makes sense. Undead and Ghosts pop up at random and attack the characters like wandering monsters in a badly run Dungeons and Dragons game, Peter Wellers character - despite being 'a front runner to become the next pope' - has no problem with letting Ledger and Addy know that he's a murdering Satanist, and Alex falls in love (and loses his priesthood through shagging) a girl who earlier shot him for reasons that are never explained, but may be due to her being possessed by the devil. Then again, it may not. We're never really told. When, later in the film this girl tops herself and Alex undergoes a crisis because as a priest he can't save her soul, it was all I could do to restrain myself from shouting "Become a Protestant! Foreswear the lies of Rome!" in my best Ian Paisley accent as doing this would remove any moral trauma from the scene and, in fact, kill the whole plot stone dead on the spot.
And it would have been a better film for it.
It's a beautiful film, I give it that. The locations are great and Rome looks fantastic. However, as a film it's such a mess. People act just to advance the plot, and believable characterisation never gets a more than a foot in the door before being rudely shoved aside by the script moving to the next set piece. It's got some great actors, none of whom are allowed to be great. It's got some good ideas, but picking holes in Catholicism has been done far better in Dogma, and really, you should just see that.
