The Rite

The Rite

Inspired by true events, this supernatural thriller follows a seminary student (Colin O’Donoghue) sent to study exorcism at the Vatican in spite of his own doubts about the controversial practice and even his own faith. Only when sent to apprentice with legendary Father Lucas (Anthony Hopkins), who has performed thousand of exorcisms, does his armor of skepticism begin to fall. Drawn into a troubling case that seems to transcend even Father Lucas’s skill, the young seminarian glimpses a phenomenon science can’t explain or control – and an evil so violent and terrifying that it forces him to question everything he believes.

The Rite isn’t a terrible film. You get a serious subject in regards to exorcism, and how the Catholic Church perceives it. You also get an interesting take on someone whose religion is truly shaken to the point that he feels lost. Both subjects go hand in hand when it comes to a scary film like The Rite. Our two main characters in the film go through both plot points with ease and grace. Colin O’Donoghue’s Michael Kovak is visually and spiritually lost, and the actor pulls that off quite well. In the face of evil he plays the skeptic quite well. He does mope around a bit, like an emo kid in a high school, but in the end his slow change from skeptic to possible believer is not sudden or fake; rather it’s genuine.

The other half of the film is Anthony Hopkins worn down Father Lucas Trevant. Hopkins does a spectacular job in portraying this exorcist who has truly been around the corner more than once with the devil. His ability to pull of this character with ease is amazing. For example, when he is exorcising the pregnant mother you can tell that he’s done this sort of work before. He uses an old veteran type of attitude to show the audience that he’s truly not afraid of anything evil. This performance goes from second gear to fifth when the odds turn against him later on in the film. Hopkins ability to play the strong, confident character and then turn around and become weak is a frightening experience to go through as you’re watching the film. That’s why the man is such a damn good actor.

If it had not been for the performances of these two gentlemen then this movie probably would have been much worse than most have perceived it.

The problems with this film reside in two things:

1. The shallow storylines.

2. Michael Petroni’s inability to convince the audience that Kovak has true issues.

The first and the second points are almost one in the same in terms of problems.  The overall storyline in The Rite needed a bit more depth to it. Having identified the two plot points (lack of religious faith and exorcism) in less than 10-minutes is something of a personal record for me. What saddened me is that neither of the two plot points expanded beyond what I just described. Kovak’s lack of faith was never truly explained in the film. There were flashbacks here and there, but nothing was set in concrete about the turning point in his religious life. It is clearly understood that he was going to school to find out about his faith, but it never became more than that. (SPOILER ALERT) I fully understand that his mother was a big part of his life and she was the religious boat that kept the family afloat; that much is given through dialogue.  When she dies when he is young the movie doesn’t show or explain how he became lost. There was no solid foundation for his quest, which meant he was no more than a guy wishing he talked to God. He became a bit of whiner in the middle of the film and instead of seeing a lost soul finally found; the end of the film feels like a, “OHHH! There’s God” moment. That sort of revelation feels very empty when one is watching The Rite (SPOILER ENDS)

Writer Michael Petroni simply doesn’t do enough to explain Kovak’s issues. On that same note, Petroni also leaves the importance of exorcism a little shallow as well. You don’t get much detail of exorcism other than experiences that Trevant goes through in the film. You don’t get a clear explanation of how an exorcism is performed, how long it can take or what type of toll it can take on the exorcist. One of the creepy parts about The Exorcist is that it gave you enough to understand how bad exorcisms can be. The Rite doesn’t really touch upon any specific details, just minor details through Father Trevant’s experiences; frankly, that’s not enough. More information on exorcism and more of established, actual points about the class Catholics must go through to be certified an exorcist would have helped a lot.

Not all things should fall on the shoulders of Michael Petroni, though. Mikael Håfström needs to take some heat for the direction the film was taking. Throughout the film there were various issues with imbalanced bridges between plot points. The Rite starts out pretty solid, but soon finds itself trying to explain so much that it ends up not explaining enough. We don’t spend enough time with Trevant’s character enough to feel too much for his situation at the end. We spend way too much time trying to explain whom Kovak his and what his deal with religion might be (which doesn’t come to fruition). As much as I enjoy Alice Braga as an actress (she’s quite good) she had little use in this film. If she had turned into an angel or something at the end that would have been great, but she was more of a tag along than a useful cog in the machine. Håfström should have seen all this and addressed it before the film started shooting.

Enough negativity. The Rite, while shallow and a little bit of a mess, is still entertaining to watch for the creepy factor. Seeing Hopkins possessed, and seeing the small transition into possession, is just downright scary. The end of the film is more powerful than the previous hour of it, which means that it’s worth at least a watch. With that said, let’s talk about how the Blu-ray makes the viewing even better.

There is no doubt that Warner Home Video is the king of Blu-ray transfers. While The Rite is predominantly dark and creepy, it does benefit from the darker colors (browns, blacks and grays) when it comes to HD. The visuals will simply make you uncomfortable, especially when you see the final fight in the film. The room that Hopkins’ Trevant does his exorcism inside of is probably one of the scariest rooms I’ve seen on film in some time. The creepy factor is magnified ten fold thanks to sharp Blu-ray presentation. On top of this, the film’s audio makes the experience even worse (in a good way). Mastered in 5.1 DTS-HD, you’ll find little comfort when it comes to this horror show on Blu-ray.

Now, what about the special features? The features on The Rite are well done. While you only really get two solid features, they’re just that — solid. Here’s what you’re looking at:

–         Alternate Ending
–         Soldier of God
–         Deleted Scenes

The deleted scenes are okay, but the real treats here are the alternate ending (they should have kept this one) and the featurette called Soldier of God. The featurette introduces you to how the production was made, who helped and you see the real people behind the characters in the film. The features help the movie quite a bit in terms of entertainment value.

The Rite is available on Blu-ray Combo Pack, DVD, On Demand and for Download 5/17! http://bit.ly/TheRiteFB