rooprect
Perhaps like you, I hesitated to watch this film because I thought it might fall into the standard clichés of a religious thriller (like a cluelessly naïve priest, a slutty prostitute, gratuitous booty shots, vapid dialogue, blatant religious or anti-religious propaganda, predictable ending, etc), so I came to IMDb to check out the reviews. As others have said, this is indeed a great movie. I was really surprised at how much substance the filmmakers packed into this 95 min film. It constantly surprised me and was never predictable while making logical sense the whole way through. And it leaves us with a powerful message we can all munch on, religious folks & atheists alike.Through Jeremy Sisto's character, an intelligent and curious young priest, we are presented with a lot of fascinating themes. Though set amid the Catholic church, we don't get any church propaganda nor do we get church bashing. Instead the film focuses on human beings and how, regardless of god & religion, we attempt to find peace in our souls. The film never comes across as preachy, yet it shows us the value of human interactions and how our trivial actions can have enormous consequences.Conversely, the lascivious underworld of sex & debauchery presents another venue, but the film never descends to the obvious moralizing. Again, they're all shown to be human beings with human interactions, and it's the value of these interactions that gives the world meaning.This is a very dialogue-driven, tone-driven movie. In other words, no car chases, shootouts or big explosions. Instead the interesting characters carry the film and do so brilliantly. There's a lot of playful banter between characters, and the witty humour is what really makes this a fun film even though it makes us think.This may sound odd, but it reminded me a lot of The Exorcist III, another excellent film that packs much more than the DVD cover implies. Both films revolve around a man whose faith is unconventional, who is trying to make sense of a bizarre mystery & how it relates to matters of the soul. And both films have some great humour despite being thrillers. Don't forget the great acting. Jeremy Sisto's quiet, inexperienced-yet-savvy character in Into Temptation is like a young George C Scott in The Exorcist III. Put your thinking cap on, see both films, and I guarantee you won't be disappointed.Other obscure films that this reminded me of (and which I also recommend) are "Rudy Blue" (1999), "Angela" (1995), and "The Merry Gentleman" (2008).
PeachHamBeach
***********POSSIBLE BIG-TIME SPOILERS!!!************* This film is a rare and very precious gift, for real. It took me 2 viewings to fully comprehend what message it was trying to convey, and that's true with any film. There are NO flaws in this film. If it seems too slow or introspective or you feel it's not "talking" loudly enough for you, you may be like me: You need to see it at least twice.It is a quiet, gentle, yet intensely communicative film about damage, sin, searching for one's faith, begging for absolution while knowing that life cannot go on, a misguided attempt to intervene, the realization of one's terrible mistakes, forgiveness and atonement.In an inner-city Catholic parish, ironically named St. Mary Magdalen's, a young priest (Jeremy Sisto), ordained 12 years ago, keeps busy and dedicated to God's work. When not listening to busybody wives complain incessantly about their husband's habits, he is counseling mothers-to-be, a conflicted youth who believes he is gay, and an unemployed ex-boxer; or he is running a homeless shelter, praying over the sick/dying, or attending mandatory speaking appearances with the ladies' auxillary.His life, while super-busy and tirelessly dedicated, seems strangely routine somehow. But one evening, before Mass, a beautiful blond woman named Linda (Kristin Chenoweth) comes to confession for the first time in nearly 2 decades. She confesses that she wants to end her life on her own birthday, sometime in the very near future, and she strongly needs Father John to give her an answer: Am I damned for eternity if I commit this "unpardonable" sin? She spends a while telling John her sad tale, then leaves abruptly.The first sign that Father John Buerlein is about to embark on an interesting journey was not evident to me on first viewing. And I don't want to spoil it too much; Father John had a certain task to perform, right there in that confessional booth, and he should have concentrated on that one task. As Father Ralph O'Brien (Brian Baumgartner) puts it, "Don't cross that line, John." From the first moment he encounters Linda, though, John seems unable to put it out of his mind. He finds himself preoccupied even at the pulpit. He keeps hearing her voice, and maybe, he already is aware of the mistake he's made handling this encounter, and desperately needs to make things right before she carried out her final plans. He begins to conduct a search for Linda, whose whole face he never got a look at, only her hair, lips and the crucifix she wore. His desperation, his need to make it up to her that he didn't do what he should have in the booth, drive him to places he would never have gone to. He HAS TO FIND HER. That's all he knows. And it seems he must do what he must. He researches prostitutes in the public library, he takes a prostitute out for a drink, and most bizarre, when the owner of a sex shoppe tells him he has to buy something in order to look around the place for Linda, he buys a porn magazine. Somehow, even though he knows he is treading in dangerous waters, his obsession with finding and stopping Linda is so strong that he believes that if he fraternizes with the patrons of the streets, pimps, prostitutes, peep show dancers and porn shoppes, he will somehow find Linda and save her life.Why is he obsessed so? Does he feel like the work he's already doing not really go anywhere? Is he, a seasoned priest, not really sincere and on the prowl for some good carnal fun? Is he going through the motions, having become "lukewarm" in his faith? Not at all. It's more than obvious, he needs to find Linda again and help her, like he should have in the first place.The characters Zeke, Gus and Miriam are so mysteriously crafted that at first I was asking, "Angels among us?" Oh yeah, and we can't forget James St. Clair!!! While we follow Father John on his journey through the dark streets of Linda's world, we take an internal tour of him as well, and as much as I loved Chenoweth's portrayal of the tortured Linda, this is definitely Sisto's film for the most part. We find out a lot about him, and the many sources of earthly, fleshly "temptation" that a lesser person would cave and succumb to. After all the negative portrayals we've seen and heard of Catholic priests, it is as refreshing as a winter night's air to see a man, a young man at that, be this disciplined and dedicated, to possess such a strength of spirit, to be able to resist what most men weaken and lust after. John doesn't even waver in the presence of his beautiful ex-girlfriend Nadine (Amy Matthews) who is back in town and asking him point blank if he still has feelings and desires for her. The film will not be for you if you are looking for action and explosions are one-liners. The humour is extremely good, but there will be no spoofing or schock-sex-humour or big jokes like in a film like DOGMA by Kevin Smith (also an admirable film about the Catholic faith, but very different from this!!!) The pace is very fast, but again, the key word here is subtlety. You have to pay close attention to every word, every scene, every detail. The only gripes I'll offer is that I don't know whose pix Linda is looking at in that scene where she is going thru a box of her stuff.Honestly, I didn't know what I'd think of it, being that it is a film about a priest descending into a dark underground to find a hooker. But I love this film! I'll give it an A+.
