Susan Granger’s review of “The Rite” (Warner Bros.)
While horror figures prominently in the advertising, this is really a psychological thriller about a seminary student who reluctantly attends exorcism school at the Vatican.
When skeptical Michael Kovak (Colin O’Donoghue), the son of an undertaker (Rutger Hauer), is dispatched by his advisor, Father Matthew (Toby Jones) to Rome to attend a two-month summer exorcism class, he befriends journalist Angeline Vargas (Alice Braga) as he repeatedly spars with pious Father Xavier (Ciaran Hinds), insisting that victims of demonic possession are suffering psychiatric problems rather than a spiritual crisis. So Father Xavier sends him off to observe unorthodox-but-devout Father Lucas Trevent (Anthony Hopkins), who is attempting to exorcise pregnant, 16 year-old Rosaria (Marta Gastini) who was raped by her father.
“What did you expect? Spinning heads? Pea soup?” Trevent sarcastically inquires, referring to William Friedkin’s 1972 Oscar-nominated “The Exorcist.”
Based on American journalist Matt Baglio’s “The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist,” the concept was not only inspired by true events but also the Roman Catholic Church’s current need for trained exorcists. Last November, American bishops held a conference in Baltimore to prepare more priests to respond to the demand. Bishop Thomas J.Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., who organized the meeting, clarified to the New York Times that exorcism “is only used in those cases where the Devil is involved in an extraordinary sort of way in terms of actually being in possession of the person.” And a person who claims to be possessed must be evaluated by doctors to rule out a mental or physical illness, according to Vatican guidelines issued in 1999, which superseded the previous guidelines, issued in 1614.
While Australian screenwriter Michael Petroni (“The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader”) and Swedish director Mikael Hafstrom (“1408”) deliver pretentious, gruesome, cliché-riddled Satanic drivel, Hopkins’ low-key, paternal performance is, nevertheless, credible.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Rite” goes wrong with a guilty 4 – and don’t blame it on the winter doldrums because Hopkins’ Oscar-winning “The Silence of the Lambs” was a February release.
