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Saturday, June 25, 2011

Movie Review – “Rite”

Movie: Rite
Rating: êêêê
Michael Kovak(Colin O'Donoghue), the son of a funeral director has two options become a funeral director like his father or join the seminary. Having grown indifferent to his father he decides to join a seminary to escape his life and get a college degree. On his way to the course completion, he is overwhelmed by a strong lack of faith and submits his resignation. His religious beliefs are further jolted when he sees a young girl haplessly dying in a road accident caused unintentionally by his mentor Father Matthew (Toby Jones) who was trying to convince him to stay. He reluctantly performs the ritual to absolve her sins as she dies in his arms as Father Matthew looked on. His calm handeling of the situation only further convinces Father Matthew that Michael is special. He urges him to go to Italy to take an exorcism course hoping that he it would strengthen his faith in Christianity.
In Italy he attends classes taught Father Xavier (Ciarán Hinds) and befriends a Reporter covering the class for a story named Angelina(Alice Braga). Father Xavier soon becomes aware of Michael’s skepticism and sends him to an eminent Jesuit exorcist, Father Lucas Trevant (Anthony Hokins). Father Lucas’s techniques though questionable and unorthodox are quite effective. He witnesses the exorcism of a sixteen year old pregnant girl who was raped by her father but still seems unconvinced believing instead she can be treated by medical means.  Father Lucas explains him that it takes multiple sessions over a long stretch of time to completely free a victim from the daemon inside them. Despite witnessing some supernatural occurrences during the aforesaid exorcism, Michael is as skeptical as ever. After the second exorcism, the girl’s condition becomes critical as she is moved to a hospital and strapped to the bed for her safety. She soon dies and the daemon finds a new victim in Father Lucas. On her deathbed she forsees the death of Michael’s father back in the US. Overcome by his loss and the erratic behavior of Father Lucas he turns to Angelina for help.  Realizing that father Lucas is now possessed he must overcome his own doubts and apprehensions in order to fight and destroy the ominous forces. With Angelina’s assistance Michael is forced to perform the exorcism on his own. After repeatedly rebuking the daemon during a long hard fight he completes’ the exorcism and frees Father Lucas. Successful, Michael leaves Rome, returning to the United States and to his life.
In the final scene back in the US we find Michael Kovak has discovered that his calling is as a priest as he enters a confessional to hear a young girl’s confession.

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