The Rite (2011)
(On Cable TV, May 2019) Any movie that takes on Catholic exorcism is measuring itself against the obvious heavy-hitter in the genre — The Exorcist. Fortunately, The Rite is aware of that precedent, and seems built to go beyond the tropes of the 1973 film. Featuring a young priest protagonist asked to undertake exorcism training, the film takes us in an enjoyable conspiratorial view of the Catholic Church in which demonic possession is seen as something to be managed through rigidly defined protocols. While Colin O’Donoghue is bland as the protagonist, it doesn’t matter very much given that Anthony Hopkins is the real driving force of the film. He hams it up as a renegade priest who happens to be the best in dealing with possessed souls—until, predictably, he is possessed himself. As a horror film, The Rite is merely serviceable at best—the horror is small-scale, the frights are familiar and the entire thing does live in the shadow of many similar films. But it does have its share of good moments as well: a protagonist written as having his doubts, a relatively credible portrayal of the Vatican’s most extraordinary people and quite an anchor in Hopkin’s portrayal. I suppose it could have been much worse.