The Reckoning

Year: 2003 Rating: R Overall Evaluation: 7.5 Significance Suppositions Story Style 8.0 / 10 7.0 / 10 7.0 / 10 9.0 / 10 Click HERE for evaluation criteria.

Style

Rated R for some sexuality and violent images. Nothing really gratuitous, the sexuality and violence are not overdone and are useful for the mood of the film.

Story

This is a morality play about a morality play. Set in the 14th century, it revolves around a fallen priest (no surprise there, it's alike a rule that all Hollywood priests must be fallen to be interesting) who joins a band of actors in order to escape his past (and the death penalty). They go into a town to perform the standard biblical stories and discover that there is a very interesting story waiting for them. A woman has been charged with murder, and the priest - who believes her to be innocent - convinces the troupe to tell her story in play form. They decide to go ahead with this new idea for a play and in researching for the roles they discover a plot to blame her for what another person actually did.

Suppositions

The film is a tad on the overly-dramatic side, but not too bad. Nothing terribly unbelievable. The priest is believable, but if fallen priests were the exception rather than the rule in Hollywood he would have been much more interesting as a character.

Significance

The message the movie sends is very virtuous - that evil must be punished and it is wrong to allow the innocent to suffer if one can do something about it - even at the cost of his own happiness. Very good! Unfortunately the priest makes no move to reconcile himself or anyone else to God - even intimating that he no longer believes. This leaves his moral action somewhat questionable as it appears he may be doing the right thing in order to gain back his "salvation."