The Order
by Brian Helgeland
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Benno F?rmann, Heath Ledger, Mark Addy, Peter Weller, Shannyn SossamonDirector: Brian Helgeland
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 102 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-12-30
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of The Order
Movie Review: More like 3.5 stars
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a movie that you can't stop in the middle and do something else. I made that mistake and it lost its whole spell on me.
Having said that it's a pretty OK movie where evil and Catholicism are concerned. Heath Ledger's character is a priest whose mentor has died. Not that's a problem itself, but he's been excommunicated and cannot be buried in holy ground because of this. Alex, Ledger's character, does it anyway, but not before noticing that there are marks on his body that correspond to that of a Sin Eater, a human who can offer absolution outside of the Catholic Church. That's obviously a huge no no.
The plot is about him trying to find the Sin Eater and destroy him, but the ending holds a nice twist that you probably weren't looking for. It's a bit weird though. I wouldn't have ended the film like that.
I don't think this is Ledger's finest work, but it's not bad. He was a very good actor, one whose films I'll continue to watch for years to come. I felt that Sossamon's character of Mara was very underused. I wish there would have been more of her in this film.
It's a good film if you like dark suspense, and dark films. It's definately not for those who don't like to see Catholicism in a bad light, but I didn't feel it was shown negatively, only that some within the Church are evil as opposed to the entire thing.
I will say this, and this is a spoiler, the choice to use Peter Weller in the second role, or at least his voice, was a very bad idea. His voice is very distinctive and I don't see how any could not have picked it out in a crowd.
Summary of The Order
Alex Bernier (Heath Ledger) is a member of an arcane order of priests who is sent to Rome to investigate the mysterious death of the head of this order. The body may be of a Sin Eater, a renegade who offers absolution, last rites and therefore a path to heaven outside the jurisdiction of the church. Alex enlists the aid of his old comrade Father Thomas and of a troubled artist (Shannyn Sossamon) upon whom he once performed an exorcism. He soon finds himself plunged directly into the face of unimaginable evil, murder, and ultimately, a fate worse than death. The Order will find you!Writer-director Brian Helgeland tried something different with The Order, and surely that counts for something. This brooding supernatural thriller was immediately dismissed by critics, and it's easy to see why it flopped: it's full of solemn, quasi-religious ruminations, it's murky in both visual and thematic content, and it demands the viewer's focused attention, which amounts to pissing in the shallow pool of big-studio filmmaking. And yet those qualities also give The Order some modest cult potential, as it tells the story of Alex (Heath Ledger, star of Helgeland's A Knight's Tale), a rebellious priest from an arcane fringe of Catholicism, who investigates the death of his excommunicated mentor and discovers the existence of a modern day "sin eater," capable of cleansing souls of evil, who has chosen Alex as his would-be successor. A troubled love interest (Knight's Tale costar Shannyn Sossamon) and an evil cardinal (Peter Weller) offer hope and damnation, respectively, but it's up to individual viewers to decide if The Order offers anything of lasting interest. --Jeff Shannon
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