Movie Review: The Rite

My Review:  ★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★

I was not sure to expect with this one as I am very skeptical about these drama, thriller, horror movies out nowadays. After seeing the last exorcism, I was turned off completely by this genre. I heard from a good friend that it was pretty good. I am a big fan of Anthony Hopkins so I decided to check it out.

The story is about Michael Kovak, who is a mortician and has decided to go into the priesthood. You get the idea that he has always been involved in it since childhood and is looking for something else, some sort of meaning and decides to go into the priesthood.

It starts off pretty slow with lots of dialogue, there is a crucial scene, in my opinion about destiny in which Michael has written a letter to his superior about wanting to quit the church after four years. The scene forwards to Michael walking outside in the rain after emailing his resignation, and the father superior coming out in the rain to talk to him and in the process slips off the curve, a passing courier or biker, avoids hitting the father, and gets hit on my a truck. As the girl lays dying in the street, Michael doesn't know what to do and the injured girl asks him to pray for her and read her last rites. He performs it, but as the camera pans in for a brief moment, even he doesn't believe what he has done. All the while the father is watching this from across the road and determines it is Michael who should go to exorcism school in Italy.

Without giving too much of the movie away, Michael goes and eventually meets Anthony Hopkins. From then on the plot thickens and there are some definite "jump out of your seat moments". It made me do the same and squirm in my seat.

The message in this movie was pretty loud and clear, even to me a guy who has lost faith in many things, that love in absence of faith, whatever that faith is, is pretty much impossible. It really resounded loudly with me and made me spend some time thinking about my own life as I exited the theatre. Regardless of my review, you should go check it out yourself. Its not uber scary and more thought provoking than anything. It could be a good sunday in the rain type of movie.

Until next time...