The Reckoning (2004)

Blistering performances.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I'm a huge fan of The Name of the Rose and I try to catch all medieval movies I can. I ran into this by chance, but read from here that it should be a good looking movie in the style of TNOTR. It wasn't at all, I was hugely disappointed.The story is a murder mystery, yes. The setting is medieval with castles and all, yes. That's about it, I can't think of other similarities. But let's start with the good things.The acting is pretty good as far as Bettany and a few others go. I've never been a huge fan of any of these actors, but especially Bettany played his role very well, it's not often that you see a role played so richly yet it doesn't go into theatrical over acting. The story is also interesting and the production design and locations are gorgeous. The biggest problem I had with the movie is that it feels more like a stage play rather than a movie. While there are few nice and creative shots and - I'll mention again - the sets look great, the cinematography and lighting varies from OK to plain awful most of the time. It's very confusing. Lot's of hand held camera and there appears to be zero post processing or color correction. It felt sort of improvised, more like a theatrical act captured on video rather than a movie where you actually care about the aesthetics of the shots.It's kind of annoying that such great sets and locations are ruined by this directorial decision. I'm guessing many didn't mind this as there are very good reviews, but to me it matters a lot how the film looks and feels. While the atmosphere is kind of medieval, it's not "movie medieval", it's like you'd be visiting the village today and they were performing this as a summer theater act. At night the castle was lit like a tourist attraction.I was kind of surprised of all this as some on the boards mentioned McGuigan being a visual director with lackluster stories. I find this the exact opposite. The story is so much better than the visuals that ended up on screen.

The film pairs the director Paul McGuigan with lead actor Paul Bettany once more; Bettany was the star, though not the lead name, of McGuigan's 2000 film 'Gangster No 1', Bettany's breakthrough role.Set in medieval/feudal times the film's plot pits the poor people, the serfs, against the noble elite, the lords. The conviction of a woman, set to be hanged, for the murder of a boy is the backdrop to a travelling group of actors of the Royal Court arriving in the hamlet to stage their uninspired morality plays based on scenes from the Bible. In their midst is a priest (Bettany), who is on the run for a crime of his own. Inspired by the murder the actors decide to stage a play of their own creation. Their enactment leads to the discovery that the condemned woman is not guilty of the murder. What follows is a series of reckonings in which there is an ultimate reckoning for the priest.The film cast is an eclectic one (American, British and Spanish) with many well known and fine actors. Not all are well employed though Bettany, Dafoe (dodgy regional English accent aside) and Elvira Minguez (who plays the wrongfully convicted mute Martha) give strong performances. Bettany and Minguez are especially good, playing their respective roles with passion and emotion. For any Bettany fan this is highly recommended as he does what he does best - look beautiful whilst combining cynicism with earnestness.The mood and feeling of the medieval period, sometimes described as the dark ages, is really well captured and there is a strong sense of austerity, chilliness and mystery/menace throughout. The director uses lighting well: an early scene, illustrative of this, shows Bettany cutting his hair to rid him of the emblematic hairstyle of a priest. A blue filter is used conveying ice and water metaphors for the cold existence of a priest now cast out. Moments like this make the film quite compelling viewing.The film is rather ambitious trying to show religious collusion with corrupt politics, man's struggle with God, injustice, the lot and politics of being an actor in this era as well as ordinary moral torments. It possibly would have been more effective if the director had focused on just one of these themes.I can imagine this gaining cult status in time not least for the scenes in which Dafoe practises Ashtanga Yoga poses.

Few films have managed to depict the Medieval period so well as this one. The dirt, the illnesses, shabby clothes, prejudices, terrible witch hunting's - all is here and well shown. Willem Defoe is a great choice for the main role, as well as unusually silent Vincent Cassdel, who play a traveling comedian and a terrible landlord respectively. The plot is also good - a sinned priest is on the run, he joins the traveling actors troupe and together they come to a small town, where a woman is going to be hanged for alleged child murder. The actors decide to learn the truth and finally they stage a play impromptu showing the real events of that blood chilling murder. What is bad in this film is a very slow tempo and really tedious dialogs so often. Pity, this film could have been much better...

I suppose there is an audience for a movie like this in an age when educated people boldly deny evolution as a valid scientific theory in favor of Biblical creationism. However, I cringed throughout. The vastness of wasted talent in this movie is the only impressive thing about it. All of them stumbling through its muddled morality mush of pseudo-Christian, homophobic, anarchical nonsense, set in a Medieval period which could not have possibly hosted these events. It would have been more believable if it had been staged on a distant planet with old Star Trek TV sets. Paul Bettany manages to escape with a small amount of dignity by delivering his corny speeches with Shakespearean zeal and by dying quite well. Vincent Cassel has no aptitude as a 1950s-style homosexual villain. It seemed his heart just wasn't in it to his credit. Another turkey that somehow got off the ground in a world where many swans never get their wings.