The Rite Stuff, or End of Days?: A Movie Review

By Ed Sum

Director: Mikael Håfström.

Writers: Michael Petroni.

Stars: Colin O'Donoghue, Anthony Hopkins and Ciarán Hinds.

There are some good things to like about The Rite. The cinematography is splendid, and there is a touch of symbolism snuck in here and there to make the camera shots stand out. And the story is more than what one would expect.

Instead of yet another film about purging a helpless soul of evil, it’s about a young man, Michael Kovak (Colin O'Donoghue), coming to terms with his own past. He has a rite of passage to undertake. Life is not a free ride, as audiences are led to believe. The movie is slowly paced, and one really has to appreciate it when the film reaches its conclusion.

Like recent exorcism-style movies, the tale focuses on a hero who is suffering from a crisis of faith. The fantastic takes a back seat and a more realistic film has taken its place. The possessed victim doesn’t do anything that involves heavy special effects and there’s enough psychobabble to make a casual viewer’s head spin.

Or in the Rite’s case: the theology. The church’s interpretation of what is good and the eternal war with evil is the focus here. But one should bear in mind that devils and demons are just lumped together with no acknowledgment of their unique cultural origins.

Plato defined daemons as benevolent supernatural beings. In court proceedings, The Exorcism of Emily Rose does a better job at questioning what the invisible world is all about. This movie preaches too much in what would otherwise be an interesting film.

Neither Lucifer nor Pazuzu is back. To see more of either force would be interesting, but no, it’s another entity the film’s heroes have to deal with. With Father Lucas Trevant (Anthony Hopkins) helping Kovak, it doesn’t come easy, and by the film’s end, what’s left is open for talk around the dinner table.

The battle is far from over, and the forces of evil will always be keeping an eye out for the weak to possess. While this movie is based on the book “The Rite — The Making of a Modern Exorcist,” just how many real possessions happen?

The novel is based on Reverend Gary Thomas’ dissertation in how he became an exorcist. Even he admits that there aren’t that many real cases around the world. The Roman Catholic Church thinks otherwise. While these specialists aren’t out of a job, what they need is to simply spread a message of hope.

That’s all that’s really needed to fight back.

The full movie trailer can be viewed here:



The DVD and Blu-Ray for The Rite will be available here:



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