Review of The Order (2003) by Cari M — 03 Jan 2004

Religious thrillers intrigue me, especially after 2003, when I read Dan Brown's [I]Da Vinci Code [/I] and [I]Angels and Demons [/I] one after the other. There is a mysterious quality about the Catholic church that lends the institution towards books like those and movies like this (as well as the late 1990s [I]Stigmata[/I]). After all, nowhere else will you find such a centralized form of faith. It is easy, in many ways, to question or attack the Catholic church because of the Vatican and the office of the pope; no other faith--and no other form of Christianity--is so well constructed in its hierarchy. The Catholic church has a large power base misunderstood by many, particularly those who are not themselves devout Catholics.

So the church becomes a target because it becomes an "ideal" setting for exploring corruption within organized religion.

[I]The Order[/I] attempts to explore an interesting concept: sin eaters. According to the film, sin eaters were individuals who provided absolution to the dying when the church refused to provide last rites. They are therefore dangerous to the central idea of the Catholic church, which is that salvation is through the church alone. To suggest that someone outside the church could have the power to forgive sin is heresy.

It's a fascinating idea, to say the least, and it appears to have its roots in the medieval church, when the general population was still devout enough (or perhaps naive enough) to believe that the ONLY way to go to heaven was to receive last rites. In fact, it would seem to me that the practice of sin eating might be derived from the Black Plague of the 14th century, when the frequent and high death toll meant that the dying--more often than not--were unable to obtain the last rites. The pope at the time finally issued a statement that the dying could confess to the nearest man, if no priest were available, or even to a woman, if necessary. Beyond that, the faithful were to, well, have faith that their sins would be forgiven. It seems at least plausible that the idea of a sin eater might well have emerged at that time.

While the underlying idea of the movie is interesting, [I]The Order[/I] is still an ill-conceived and poorly completed venture. Heath Ledger is hardly convincing as a priest while Shannon Sossaman's role as his love interest is a bit superfluous. It has its purpose--barely--and beyond that, there is no point. The character was obviously constructed to fulfill one vital point in the story, so its difficult to find any emotional attachment to her at all.

Furthermore, there is a line between being mysterious and being entirely too cryptic. Early on in the film, the characters discuss topics that the audience has absolutely no understanding of--but the film fails to make us understand until it is too late. There is too little backgrounding on the Carolingian order, and the demon spawn that spookily appear several times are just pointless.

By the end of the movie, you finally get the basic idea of what's going on, and you realize that this could have been a really fascinating topic. Unfortunately, the movie is so bad that...it's really not that interesting at all. :down: