The Rite - exorcism never ends... and the devil still lingers!

The Rite

Reviewed by Sab Khan

The Rite is a terribly grave and horrifying movie featuring Anthony Hopkins as Father Lucas, Colin O’Donoghue (the hottie) as Michael Kovak, Alice Braga (the journalist) as Angeline, Ciarán Hinds as Father Xavier and Rutger Hauer as Istvan Kovak. Exorcism is not a new topic and when your mind is still occupied with the reminisces of “The Exorcist”, it is a speck thorny to replace those mystifying scenes. But “The Rite” still rocks as Hopkins plays the exorcist who works in Rome and is considered to be the life-saver of more than 2000 possessed souls.

Mikael Håfström, the director of the movie bases the film on The Rite, a book written by Matt Baglio (an Italian journalist) but lets Michael Petroni (the writer of the movie) create the complete structure. The story sets up with Michael Kovak who's working in a funeral-home but his thoughts are sceptical and his belief in God is fading away. For that matter, he joins priest school and is almost done with the four years of pre-ordination boot camp for priesthood. The reverent senior father is aware of the boy's exceptional qualities of head and heart. Therefore, he sends him to Rome for a special exorcism class. There, he’s invited by Father Lucas to assist him in casting away the devilish spirit who has possessed a pregnant teenager. Although I didn’t get the concept of presenting Gastini as pregnant, but I guess it was to create an element of uneasiness and oddity.

The location has been manipulated by Håfström very well as Rome is already an ancient city famous for myths. The young priest doesn’t seem to believe much in these affairs and in one scene he speaks up his mind in front of the reverent Father, but then you see, one grimy glance with a tint of smile in deep blue eyes from Hopkins was enough for his queries.

The leading roles are all played by the male protagonists of the movie and Alice Braga doesn’t have much to do on screen. The nature of her job leads her to indulge in a heavy discussion about the existence of God with Kovak which ends in a friendship at the end.

The movie is not-so-very non-enthralling, thanks to our all time favourite Hopkins whose presence in the movie adds to the element of horror and dismay. Håfström didn’t let any part of the movie go away with the connection of spooky spots and people. Most part of The Rite keeps the audience at the edge of their seats and I would recommend the movie to the freaky fans of freakish stuff.

Rating: 3/5