barberic-695-574135 Difficult movie to categorise, Fantasy, Mystery, Occult Thrillr, well , it certainly falls into all of these. Good overall story, generally the acting is pretty good and Ledger deserves a special mention. A must in any movie collection. Would we watch it again, absolutely. Retained for future viewing.

Filipe Neto In this film, a young Catholic priest is sent to Rome to investigate the death of the superior of his congregation, ending up with a scenario that crosses the supernatural with the mystery. This plot looks perfect for a horror movie, doesn't it? But this isn't the case and this is one of the problems because it clashes with public's expectations, since half of them goes in search of horror. Despite this risk, the plot is interesting, engaging and manages to create an atmosphere that makes you stick to the screen to see what will happen. Its evident from the beginning that this priests are totally unorthodox and would hardly be priests in real life, but the movie's credibility depends more on how willing you are to swallow the "sin eater" story. Personally, I didn't have major problems with that, even though everything stinks false. Despite the cold start and the slow pace, the film grows as it unfolds and the final is very good, but I was able to anticipate it sensibly from the middle.The film has some well-known actors, starting with Heath Ledger, Mark Addy, Benno Furmann and Peter Weller. This last name was probably the most renowned and experienced at the time and he did a positive work, but his character was so secondary that he had very little to work with. The others limited themselves to doing what they really had to do, without merit or brilliance, in woody performances that didn't add anything praiseworthy to their careers. Cinematography presents nothing particularly interesting as well but the few special effects used are far better than the avalanche of bad CGI that some films present to the public.Far from being a good movie, this is a medium-quality thriller that fits anyone who likes the genre or just wants to spend some time idle. Its not good enough to deserve a second watch, nor its bad enough for you to consider poorly spent the time you've been watching it.

hellholehorror I really liked the style. It looked really dark and yet really pretty. The only thing that I didn't like was the over-use of cross dissolves and pictures put on top of each other. The lighting looked fantastic. Really good sound nicely balanced. It feels so dark and moody and I loved it! The religious angle was interesting. I thought it worked really well and kept my attention. I didn't like Heath Ledger in the main role; I found him unconvincing which is a shame. Oozing with moody style and Gothic noir. I loved it!

SnoopyStyle Alex Bernier (Heath Ledger) is a priest and a Carolingians. The Dark Pope or Sin Eater can remove sin from anyone who can then go to heaven. This is heresy to the Roman Catholic Church. Mara Williams (Shannyn Sossamon) escaped from the asylum after shooting Alex during an exorcism. Alex and Mara go to Rome after the death of the Carolingian leader who was killed by the mysterious Sin Eater. Alex has to hunt him down with the help of fellow Carolingian Thomas Garrett (Mark Addy) under the command of Driscoll (Peter Weller).It's a rare thing to say but this movie needs more exposition. It's a mess of a story that somebody needs to explain to the audience. It doesn't work as a supernatural action movie either. Writing/director Brian Helgeland calls in his actors from 'A Knight's Tale' but this is a diametrically opposite movie. There are some silly looking stuff that are suppose to be seriously dark. None of it actually works.