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Rating:  -
I had not even heard of Paul McGuigan's "The Reckoning" (2003) until I stumbled upon it last Christmas on a cable channel. I was intrigued by the plot involving a medieval troupe of players and a fallen priest. Last night we rented the DVD and were genuinely impressed by the levels of meaning and mystery in this morality play within a morality play. Paul Bettany stars as the lapsed cleric, whose career as a wise pastor and brilliant preacher are destroyed by an affair with a woman parishioner and the subsequent, unintended murder of her indignant husband. Bettany conveys the inner torment of guilt and struggle for redemption of one anointed to God's service. Even in his defrocked state, Father Nicholas strives for truth, justice, and the salvation of others. He cannot escape the Divine call.
The movie opens with the words from Romans 8: 21: "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose." God can bring good out of the worst situations, as Father Nicholas' discovers when he is adopted by the band of traveling players, with Willem Dafoe as the gifted leading actor. Dafoe is a master of his craft, as always. The film shows how medieval theater was an extension of religious worship, as the Bible stories are dramatized in "mystery plays" at festivals. In this case, as in Hamlet, the play becomes a means of solving a brutal murder, a deed which has traumatized the inhabitants of an English village. The heart of the mystery lies in the imposing Norman fortress on the mountain, and Father Nicholas will not rest until justice is done, hoping to expiate his own crime.
"The Reckoning" boasts of authentic sets and costumes, many examples of wholesome Catholic piety (as well as some exaggerated ones), and the not-so-wonderful examples of medieval bawdiness, blasphemy, disease, and dirt. My main criticism of the film is that in the beginning it states that Church and state were united in oppressing the masses, when we know that there were many, many times that various saints of the Church defended the people from tyrants. There were good priests, bishops, and kings in the Middle Ages; even in the movie it shows the king's officers being the arbiters of justice, investigating reports of abuses. In our own enlightened times, we are not without oppressive barons, and innocent lives are still sacrificed to lust.
Rating: -
THIS STORY WAS DIFFERENT THAN I HAD EXPECTED, BUT IT SHOWS HOW EACH CHARACTER DEVELOPS HIS OR HER PART & HOW THE CONSPIRACY OF MURDER WAS SOLVED AND THE VILLIAN WAS BROUGHT TO JUSTICE.
Rating: -
This film was intriguing in its representation of many subjects: of the work of traveling medieval players, of the power of medieval lords over a helpless populace, and of crowd psychology. It also contained outstanding acting, and superb costuming/set design/cinematography/lighting/stagecraft.
For experts, the flaws are obvious. Many are obvious to me as well. I studied drama extensively in college and grad school. What disturbed me most, as a general viewer, was that some informative scenes seem to have been left out. We have to interpolate what happened, but that is actually a good challenge; the gaps in film coverage are brief. Admittedly, I did find the sudden changes in camera perspectives disturbing in the final confrontation between the actor/priest and De Guise. But those disruptions were few and brief.
The struggles of the players to overcome the bias of the public toward standard Everyman morality plays, and to introduce a play of a contemporary nature despite the dangerous objections of the church and its brainwashed public, were intriguing. I hadn't seen that represented before. Yes, it would have been very dangerous. That explains why the Everyman plays and the Harlequin plays were constantly presented, over and over again, in England and Europe.
The handling of a crowd that has become an unthinking, unfeeling mob is also intriguing. That still goes on all over the world, including the USA.
The issue of the treatment of women is addressed, too. When the male actors take a vote on their choice of a play, a female actor is told, "You have no say in this," etcetera.
The film is trying to deal with a lot of issues, and doesn't have the time to deal with all of them adequately.
Let us hope that this film will encourage the production of other films of equal or greater depth, rather than the usual in-costume claptrap that we are usually bombarded with.
This film is worth a purchase and a look-see. It will make you think, and perhaps be both positive and critical.
Rating:  -
While it is true, as others have pointed out, that there are historical inaccuracies throughout this film, from my point of view they can be overlooked because they are really not central to the theme and story here.
Set in England ca. 1380, The Reckoning depicts the unraveling of a mystery in which the exoneration of a mute woman accused by her townsfolk of murder is psychologically connected with the man who in essence proves her innocence. The man is a young disgraced priest and he has come to this town via a troupe of actors who look to increase their extremely modest finances by staging a morality play. Upon discovering, however, this accused woman, they quickly change their approach--from the staging of a traditional Bible-based work to one portraying the events leading up to the murder of the young boy, supposedly done by the mute woman.
What makes this film so powerful is a combination of strong acting (from Brian Cox, Willem Dafoe, Paul Bettany, Vincent Cassel, and several others) and especially a story that intertwines the juxtaposition of faith embraced externally based on organized religion and morality affirmed within oneself based on internal conviction. This juxtaposition is combined with the ever-present reality of politics--as typified here by a feudal lord--and its attendant corruption, as well as that of the Church which revels in its power over commoners.
One of the more compelling things about this film is that it wastes no time in getting right to the story. The viewer is quickly thrust into the meat of the story and events ensue with perfect pacing that keeps the viewer intrigued right up to the last frame. What's also interesting is that the director, Paul McGuigan, has here fashioned a film radically different from his other recent work (Gangster No. 1, Lucky Number Slevin), certainly in setting at least, and has done an excellent job. The music in particular is very strong; the two composers, Adrian Lee and Mark Mancina, are to be complimented for providing an especially appropriate and riveting score.
The production, set design, and costuming are all superior and while the speech has obviously been modernized, as another reviewer pointed out, if the actors had been speaking the actual lingo of the time no viewer would have been able to understand them without subtitles. From my perspective, this too can be forgiven along with the historical inaccuracies (e.g., timing of the plague and the Crusades, etc.)
The novel on which this is based is Morality Play by Barry Unsworth--perhaps a more fitting title. Without quibbling about details like this, The Reckoning is a very strong piece of work that should be seen--something very different in films of the last five to ten years. Some reviewers have pointed out the similarity to Name of the Rose, and to some extent this is accurate. But The Reckoning, I believe, is different enough to merit consideration on its own.
Highly recommended.
Rating:  -
Paul Bettany is an outcast priest that is on the lam for very un-priestly acts in the 14th century. He joins a traveling troupe of actors led by Willem Dafoe. The traveling troupe arrives in a village where a young, mute woman is condemned to death for killing a young boy. The troupe takes it upon themselves to learn the truth of the crime and express it through the presentation of mystery and fledgling, morality plays to the townspeople.
As indicated in previous reviews, the first part of the film is very connected and decently edited. There is a beautiful and artfully crafted scene, much like watching a pre-talkie film, in which the acting troupe prepares for their first play. And the people are dirty, really dirty giving emphasis to the historical time and the contrast between abject poverty and the landowners.
This film also has some excellent actors: Paul Bettany (who is type-cast too often as a priest), the ever amazing Willem Dafoe, and Matthew Macfadyen who has one of the most amazing voices, and plays Darcy in the latest Pride and Prejudice release. In spite of this stellar talent, the film script missteps about half way through the movie - leaving its actors confused or certainly misguided - becoming a very bad attempt as a "whodunit" movie mystery.
Normally, I can be forgiving about historical inaccuracies in period pieces, (like Paul Bettany's sudden litany of the body's death process, and Macfadyen's character knowing the difference in the marks a noose makes around a neck vs. marks left on the neck from a throttling). Or - digging up a body in frozen ground; at least it looked like winter, and cold enough to snow. What started out as a very good film, however, just ran out of storyline or something. And, it is the 'something' that confused me.
I am not a historian, but here is my laundry list of incongruities: First of all, monks would not have written with their left hand - must have been the director's 'metaphor' for an evil monk. And then there was the major confusion with the time sequence. I could have sworn at the beginning of the movie, it states that it is 1380, not 1300, maybe I misread the small print. Bettany remarks on the buboes, the mark of the plague, in the dead youth's underarm. Then, Macfadyen's character talks about King Richard and the Crusades. King Richard I (Lionhearted) was King from 1189-1199 - Pretty well dead by 1380, or 1300 for that matter. The last Crusade was in 1260. Even if this took place in 1300, it was 40 years too late, and therefore the 40ish looking Lord de Guise was certainly well preserved. The Black Plague's first occurrence in Britain was 1348 and would certainly be recognizable, but Lord de Guise would have been stone dead given the incubation time of bubonic plague. Plague may have existed in 1300, but certainly not in epidemic proportions.
The details to the plot are just randomized after a certain point, and what's worse, this still could have been a really decent movie with attention to historical detail and the assumption that some people are just bad people without going to the Crusades. Being sorely disappointed, I instead, recommend two movies that put this one to shame -Kingdom of Heaven and Name of the Rose - for medieval history viewing pleasure.
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