Though, rare, there are actually some interesting things in the film. I was quite interested in learning about the concept of Sin Eaters, my fascination for the occult was always unquenchable and I found it very interesting to see how it happened. Who knew our sins manifested itself into jellyfish ghosts once sucked out of our bodies? Aside from that the cast though atrocious, is saved by Shannon Sassymon. She's adorable, and very likable, well, how could anyone not like her? She's cute, she's non-threatening, she has a great smile, she's charismatic and I always enjoy watching her in her films, even in turkeys like this. But then I'm being biased; I've had a bad crush on her since those commercials she did years ago where she deejayed with the turntables. She's a rather enjoyable and good actress and perhaps someday she'll star in a good movie, I'm crossing my fingers. Obviously, this isn't one of them.

I'm not a fan of Heath Ledger's films; I feel he's often very bland and rarely ever manages to show that he's capable of a prolonged career in acting with his choice in films. His films are rarely ever good, from stuff like "10 Things I hate about you", to "A
Knight's Tale", Ledger has little charisma and very little appeal, but surprisingly I've seen most of his films. Why is that? I'm not really sure, but somewhere along the line it dawned upon me that I've seen most of his films and have liked little of them. It's safe to say
that "The Order" was a bomb at the box-office.

With being shelved for a very long time and screening poorly to audiences who laughed at unintentionally funny scenes, receiving very little reception, no box-office earnings, terrible reviews, and its immediate arrival and departure at the box-office, I bet if you ask people about "The Order" very few will remember having heard of it. The first telltale sign that this was doomed was the studio's unwillingness to give early screenings to critics which was a sure fire sign that "The Order" wasn't going to be a masterpiece.

So, after watching it I realized while "The Order" is a bad film, but it's not awful and not the worst film ever made. What "The Order" suffers from is what many supernatural films like "Bless The Child" and "End of Days" has suffered from: it has decent direction and interesting visuals but it's end result is bland, boring, and devastatingly bleak to a fault with recycled plot lines we've seen over and over and over. Ledger once again works alongside Shannon Sassymon and Mark Addy whom are often seen in films together. "The Order" suffers from yet another fault, it's un-original and contrived tale and story. Crooked churches, secret organizations within the church, mysterious priests who have other connections, creepy looking children who are in the film just to be creepy, and characters that barely have any personality at all.

Ledger plays Alex Bernier, a conflicted young priest whose mentor has just died and now the church is investigating his suicide. Alex is called upon by another priest (Peter Weller) whom
suspects that his mentor has been murdered now begins investigating his murder and hopes to bury his mentor in the church graveyard while discovering a mysterious cult that is tied to his mentor's death. All the while, he comes across a mysterious man who has contacted him and shows him an incredible sight revealing the cause of his mentor's death and what led to it while spouting trite often times complicated and esoteric one-liners like "Look into the abyss, and the abyss will look back into you".

Ledger's character goes through a long, arduous, and boring journey into the mind of this man and learns of his power that enables him to eat the sins of someone before they die, thus purifying them for heaven. "The Order" has many clichés to its story that it can never recover from: Addy's character is tempted by a ghost who knows something about his past and he's nearly killed with flying nails which drive themselves into his body and hands ala Jesus Christ, and then there's an awful and boring sub-plot about a mysterious underground
church cult that has mysterious ties to the priests death, though we're never really told what purpose they have in the story at hand.

Much of the storyline is scattered; when it's not boring, it's awfully confusing and then it mixes and meshes into one sloppy story that very little people will care about or even acknowledge. The first problem with "The Order" is the gross mis-casting of Heath Ledger who is hard to buy as a priest. Why is he even considered by casting agents to look like a priest is beyond me. Considering his character's obligatory cynicism towards the church he looks very clean-shaven and a little too neat to be a priest all the while acting like a cardboard cutout with very little expressions, emotions, or believable delivery of dialogue.

We'll never see a hero in these supernatural films that are happy, we'll never see a priest character who is right in the world. They always have to be dark, brooding, and cynical. So upon first glancing the trailer for this film I assumed it was about a church cult, but it is in fact about a sin eater. After revealing his very long and boring life story explaining his motivation for eating sins and contradicting the church, how he learned to eat sins, and why he eats sins, and how he eats sins, we're never given enough emotional material to care about the character who isn't at all threatening or intimidating, yet we're given a cult to fear, a cult with people who hang other people and wear black hoods and speak in Latin just to make them sound creepier.

Scary stuff, ain't it? And then we're given two pale kids who serve absolutely no purpose in the story other than to look creepy and turn into a group of bats, followed by ominous church music with a large choir constantly chanting in the soundtrack. There's no reason for the children to be in the film, but they appear frequently in the story just to look spooky and possibly symbolize something, perhaps obligatory plot devices.

Anyway, Alex is also shown how the process starts with sin eating. There can be potential conflict and philosophical pining derived from the sin eating concept within the character that is never touched upon, the conflict as to whether certain people deserve to die with sins and burn in hell and if certain people deserve to be redeemed, the conflict as to whether the sin eater is evil or not considering he rigs the dead entry into heaven. None of it is touched upon and it's all so shy away from into the nonsensical babbling we witness almost non-stop.

Seriously, it rarely ever stops. So we're given an obligatory romance between the character of Mara and Alex whose storyline is hard to make out. It seems after an exorcism he performed (odd how churches dismiss a lot of that, and odd how a young priest would perform one considering the immense amount of experience it would take) she shot him, and then tried to kill herself unsuccessfully, but he still fell in love with her.

So to add more depth to her terribly stilted and awkward character, she's an artist. She's just an artist. It has no relevance to the story, but it's thrown in there to give her depth. Alex diddles her halfway through the film to which she's prominently disposed of which
gives Alex motivation to go after the sin eater. There's even a hilarious scene in which the sin eater confronts Mara and is chasing her around the house, and in an attempt to stop his running is throwing papers at him; it's an odd and unintentionally funny sequence.

So, we're left with a climax that is so uninteresting and leaves the door open for a sequel with Ledger becoming the sin eater followed by ominous narration from Ledger declaring "I am the sin eater, I am Alex Bernier", cut to a shot of him with his arms spread like Christ and end, ad nauseum. 'Tis but a shame.

This is by no means a good movie. Interesting starting point but inevitably trails off like a mental patient with non-stop dialogue about religion, sins and whatnot without ever making any sense, horribly recycled plot devices, dull non-threatening villain, and a cheesy ending accompanied by wooden acting by Ledger and Addy make this ordeal even more exhausting. Such potential, but that's all it has.

 

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