“Hellloooo Clarice…”
I am a bit of a sucker for a good exorcism movie – even a mediocre one. I take strange comfort in knowing that the same conventions will be followed, a sceptical man will be changed forever, leading to key choices that will shape lives, and an innocent young girl – almost always a girl – will contort her body, grimace in gruesome ways, blaspheme in various tongues and generally act like a pork chop.
And that’s enough for me. So despite the generally bad press around The Rite I was cautiously optimistic, in fact half way through I was wondering just what was so terrible about it. Then the second half started…
The young man filled with doubt is Michael Kovak, when faced with the choice of joining his Father’s (Rutger Hauer) Funeral home or entering the priesthood he initially selects ‘C: None of the above’, only to have the Church remind him of the fact they paid for his education. In the end a compromise is reached where Michael is to take an exorcism course in Rome for 2 months and they will call it even.
In Rome formal training commences, classes seem to include ‘Recognising the Symptoms’ and ‘Identifying your Demons 101’. Apparently just naming the satanic body-squatter is the key to effective expulsion… “I know you’re in there Eric! Go on. Get outta there or I’ll send for the Exorcist!”
But Michael is still not sold. He is sent to spend some practical time with Father Lucas (Anthony Hopkins) and then the fun really starts. After a 2 minute getting to know each other session Lucas provides an instant example in the form of an apparently possessed young pregnant girl named Rosaria – and cue all the usual stuff mentioned above, with only vomiting nails being a notable new inclusion to proceedings.
At the conclusion of the session and accompanying histrionics Father Lucas tells a still dubious Michael that the demon is merely temporarily placated and that there is still work to do, as if to infer that his work will never be done. Maybe he is better served being a martyr?
Permit me a digression here. Another Exorcism convention is the ‘gee I’m sure they’re faking it to fool me’ motif. It comes up again and again. It just seems more trouble than it’s worth; flying a guy to a foreign country, coming up with a premise and casting actors, all for one 20 something guy?
Now to this point things were going OK, we had the sceptical rookie, the jaded old hand and the vulnerable target. A couple of demonic conversations and dialogue in various voices and languages from the effected. I’m on board. The second half though just seemed to cast aside any credibility for inane happenings and some over-the-toppery. Along with the usual shadows, suddenly closing doors and voices we have menacing frogs (!) and an evil red eyed mule (!!!) to liven things up for Michael and a young female reporter who has tagged along for the ride (Alice Braga).
The cast are fine in the usual roles, their primary tasks being to continually look troubled in the build up and to hide the smirks in the finale, Hopkins plays Father Lucas as just another working Schmo, failing to see the drama that others do, to Lucas he performs his role and either it works, or it doesn’t. The same attitude pervades the latter stages of the film, the filmmakers all but say ‘look we’ve said it was based upon a true story (aren’t all of these?), either you swallow it or you don’t. In any case this is how it is!”
Final Rating – 5 / 10. The first half of the film was going somewhere, into albeit familiar territory, but somewhere. The second half was just plain silly, ruining any semblance of credibility earned and assigning The Rite to the ‘Not quite Rite’ basket.
