Films built on foundations of religious ideology are old hat in Hollywood, from “The Ten Commandments” to “Raiders of the Lost Ark” to “Dogma.” The current trend is toward dark, suspenseful stories that are at once personal and grandiose, like “Stigmata,” “Lost Souls” and now “The Order.”
Writer/Director Brian Helgeland reunites with most of his “A Knight’s Tale” cast for a dreary film about suicide, sin-eaters, rogue priests and dark Popes.
Heath Ledger plays Alex Bernier, one of a dying order of Catholic clergy who believe in the kind of stuff these movies are about. The death of his mentor brings him from New York to Rome, with a would-be girlfriend Mara (Shannyn Sossamon) in tow.
We know there’s something odd about their relationship, since she apparently escaped from an institution in which she’d wound up for trying to kill Alex during an exorcism. And, as it is a major motion picture, we strongly suspect they’ll fall in love.
Because of the small cast and unavoidable direction of the plot, “The Order” provides little room for surprise. So it is disappointing when the biggest surprise of the film — in which Alex’s life and fate are totally explained — is mentioned almost in passing.
Helgeland fears alienating his audience, so he waters down what could be a great-looking film of religious intrigue with obvious Hollywood elements. He effectively uses the textured historical strata of Rome to parallel his characters’ dire mental states, but then juxtaposes generic photomontages to represent memories, and lame, candle-lit, multi-angle fades for a dull, unnecessary sex scene. And, for some reason, the embodiments of sin are portrayed as vaporous entities that look just like those tentacley things from “The Matrix.”
Where the film succeeds is in its characterizations, which describe relationships with subtle believability. Mark Addy — as Alex’s compadre — is the comic sidekick with an actual personality, and Sossamon manages to avoid becoming a crazy girlfriend caricature. Benno Fürmann (“The Princess and the Warrior”) and Peter Weller (“Robocop”) are stuck with un-subtle characters, but add a great deal to the film’s overall darkness.
Truth in the movies and in religion is based on faith. For that reason, films with a backbone of religious ideology can be done well. They fail when they try to transpose their version of truth into a wider reality. “Truth” means something different in reality than it does in a movie universe in which God works overtly.
If not for its occasional lapse into Hollywood cliché, “The Order” could be a defining film for its genre. As it is, it’s a surprisingly-watchable Heath Ledger vehicle.
Grade: B/C
