Review: The Rite

It is a well documented fact that Anthony Hopkins does crazy and does crazy really well. Unless you’ve somehow avoided any and all popular culture for the last two decades your reaction to seeing him play a possessed priest in The Rite was probably good. After all, once you play a cannibalistic psychopath who eats Ray Lioatta’s brain while he’s still alive the only place to go is satanic possession.

I’ll tell you right now that Hopkins is fantastic while he’s possessed by a demon, but sadly that is only the last 10 or 15 minutes of the film. The rest of the movie? Not quite as up to par with Hopkins’s demonic performance.

It is a well documented fact that Anthony Hopkins does crazy and does crazy really well. Unless you've somehow avoided any and all popular culture for the last two decades your reaction to seeing him play a possessed priest in The Rite was probably good. After all, once you play a cannibalistic psychopath who eats Ray Lioatta's brain while he's still alive the only place to go is satanic possession.

I'll tell you right now that Hopkins is fantastic while he's possessed by a demon, but sadly that is only the last 10 or 15 minutes of the film. The rest of the movie? Not quite as up to par with Hopkins's demonic performance.{{page_break}}

The Rite is yet another exorcism movie "based on a true story." This time the true story is the one of doubt-filled priest Michael Kovak(Colin O'Donoghue), a real Chicago-based priest. Kovak, despite being about to quit seminary school is chosen to travel to the Vatican and take part in a course on performing exorcisms. He doesn't believe enough however, so his instructor sends him to Father Lucas Trevant (Hopkins), an Irish priest who is known for performing the demon removing act. Also, involved, though not for any real reason, is a reporter named Angeline (Alice Braga).

Unfortunately the majority of the film involves Father Trevant performing some mediocre exorcisms (Why can't anyone do it better than The Exorcist?) while Kovak stares on in disbelief and then comes up with reasons/excuses as to why a girl vomited up nails or how a frog magically appeared in a boy's pillow. It's not necessarily boring, but when you come into a movie expecting crazy Anthony Hopkins and all you get is mildly eccentric Anthony Hopkins for 80 minutes you do feel a little robbed. Instead of a horror movie that uses faith as its grounding point, you have a faith movie that attempts to play up the horror aspects of an exorcism. It makes for some extremely off-putting moments in tone.

However, once the demonic possession starts to hit the fan — as they say at the Vatican — things start to really pick up. Then they climax and stop really quickly. Despite Hopkins's tour de force performance once the demon takes him, which is aided heavily by digital effects, the end comes rushing on faster than a tidal wave. Sadly, the speeding tidal wave only makes the impact of a small ripple, so you're left with a short intense performance that has almost no effect on you. It's too bad too, because O'Donoghue plays perfectly against Hopkins and this final exorcism could have been great if director Mikael Håfström had handled the tension in the film correctly.

Despite an ending that climaxed faster and with less intensity than a teen losing his virginity, The Rite can still hold its own in some places. O'Donoghue's performance is actually quite impressive, especially in a screenplay that seems so rushed. I doubt he'll turn into a big star thanks to this movie, but if he continues to turn in performance as good as this then he's definitely going places.

It should also be noted that even Anthony Hopkins going crazy for a disappointing ten minutes is better than no Anthony Hopkins at all. the Rite won't fix your jonings for a great Hopkins performance or a great exorcism movie, but it will give you a bit of what you're looking for.

5.70 – Bad. (5s are movies that either failed at reaching the goals it set out to do, or didn’t set out to do anything special and still had many flaws. Some will enjoy 5s, but unless you’re a fan of this genre, you shouldn’t see it, and might not even want to rent it.)