Geekscape Movie Reviews: The Rite

The Rite stars Anthony Hopkins as a priest who lives in Italy performing exorcisms for the Roman Catholic Church using unorthodox means.  He is charged with demonstrating his ability to an unsure seminary student (a priest who has not taken vows) and hopes of resolving his lack of faith in the Devil and ultimately, God.  Lending some credibility to the movie, it’s based supposedly on real life situations from a book by similar title, “The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist,” written by Matt Baglio (2009).

Anthony Hopkins (The Wolfman and upcoming Thor) seems like the perfect candidate to bring star power and experience to a genre story like this and who incidentally, I love for his many roles in cinema including , Meet Jooe Black.  Just seeing him in the trailer, made me excited to see this film.  Unfortunately, The Rite is a perfect example of casting an A List Star and former Oscar Winner to star in a movie, and hopefully by his affiliation will somehow make it great.  After all, his resume includes winning the Oscar for his role in the horror film, Silence of the Lambs.  He plays Father Lucas Trevant, and since the film has no depth, and lags in the middle for what seems like hours, it leaves no room for the actor to shine.   He does what he can with the role but due to poor editing choices and a story that strays from what made the book interesting and different, it fails to deliver anything that you would expect from Hopkins.   

The young and uninitiated priest Michael Kovak, played by Colin O’Donoghue (The Tudors) , and newcomer to the big screen,  has lots of time to demonstrate his acting ability, due in fact, that the director Mikael Håfström (1408 and Derailed), gives us plenty of back story detailing Kovak’s lack of faith and what brought him to the priesthood.  But by act two we know all about it, and want to get to the creepy, tension filled scenes that never materialize.  A certain frustration occurs when the story just keeps lagging on and on and becomes so predictable you just want to get up and leave.  When you get so borred with a film that you start noticing the audience you know that your are in trouble.  I was surrounded by people that looked uninterested, and the guy next to me even closed his eyes for extended bouts of time.  I might have even left if I hadn’t been in the middle of an aisle and felt a certain responsibility to Geekscape to give this film a chance to redeem itself in the finale which it never does. 

In the supporting role of biased reporter Angeline, played by Alice Braga (I am Legend and Predators) is well done.  

 It was too bad that the movie wasn’t a better opportunity for her.  Luckily at this stage in her career, the film will be a positive for her, unlike Hopkins, whom we expect more from.

In addition, Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner) plays Kovaks’ father in a small, but key role in establishing where Kovak gets his initial faith from.

Unlike most who will be reviewing this film I have actually read the book.  I picked it up recently and didn’t realize it was going to be a film.   The movie really differs from the original work and rightly so, for the book to work on the screen you would need to make some changes as adapted to a movie by Michael Patroni (and original book writer Baglio) as the story works well in a book but would not captivate as is for a movie audience.

It’s just to bad that the changes they made were the wrong ones.  Some of the examples of possession in the book would have made for great cinema which they neglected to include.  I am not naming them here as some of it would be shocking and best left to those who want to read more.

Incidentally, the book is not presented in a way that in intentionally scary but each facet is presented matter of factly, and those simple facts are what made it scary…. And why the film could have been good.   If you are drawn to the movie The Rite because it says it’s based on fact, I recommend that you skip the film and pick up the book.

As for the film, the ultra slow pacing made for an extremely predictable ending, which when all piled together, lay steaming on the ground, and something you avoid at all costs, even when you love the pet who left it.  Maybe wait for it on DVD, but even then there may be better choices for how you spend your time.