The Rite

(2011 d. Mikael Hafstrom)

5 out of 10

I'll admit it: I've never seen The Exorcist.
I'm not a particular fan of the genre. So, surprise I didn't find much to love here.

The lead (who I've never heard of, so nice break for him) is generally boring, but some of the blame has to go to the character as written. Anthony Hopkins is slumming. The most praise must be given to the relative Italian newcomer Marta Gastini. She's the one that has to play possessed the most: alternating between normalcy and deep-voiced craziness.

There is a particularly effective accident scene in the beginning, but otherwise thrills are nonexistant.

Michael Kovak doesn't believe in the devil. Wanting to escape his horrible funereal home life, he gets a scholarship to become a priest - intending to back out at the last minute with a college education and his freedom. But faced with possible loss of his scholarship, he accepts a trip to Rome to attend exorcism school. While in it's ultra-modern, multimedia classroom he has weak philosophical debates with the instructor, meets a reporter fellow student/disbeliever, and because he's a "hard case" - gets sent to the unorthodox preist, father Lucas to observe his chats with the demons. But he still doesn't believe despite seeing crazy, unexplained phenomena inches from his face. But then Lucas gets possessed (where and when is never addressed, why and how an exorcist himself could get possessed is never addressed) and Kovak must believe in order to not get killed by the raving, vein-popping, Lucas. But his sudden, instant, unexplained, unreasonable change from skeptic to believer is ridiculous, a Deus ex machina (demon ex machina?) that just happens because we're closing in on the 2-hour mark.

As the devil/Lucas is laughing hysterically because Kovak confesses his belief in the devil, Kovak comes back with the almost comedic "if I believe in the Devil, then I believe in God, too!" as holy water and crosses fly, buildings crumble, the earth shakes, and ominous Latin phrases boom out into the night.

But up to this point, Kovak had never claimed total disbelief, or confessed himself Atheist. Only that he thought "demonic possession" could always be linked to psychological causes. So if he did believe in God, wouldn't that necessitate the belief in the devil (since apparently the opposite is true)?

Also of note: exoricsm here apparently requires no special personal or spiritual skills (still not sure why "training" was required), only the ability to read Latin and shout very loudly. Since Kovak was far from the ideal student (always late, combative) if practice was required, there'd be no way he'd suddenly be able to have the skill set to stand face-to-face with a demon strong enough to possess an experienced exorcist. Just DON'T LOSE THAT LITTLE BOOK!!! Or maybe just memorize it?