Les traces de l'ange

"The Apostate", a dark drama airing on HBO, tells of an insane artist (Hopper) who slashes his victims and paints on walls with their blood and a Jesuit priest (Grieco) and artist, the brother of a victim, who sets about to find the killer through his art. A grisly, moody flick set in sweaty San Juan, Puerto Rico, "The Apostate" puts Grieco through his paces as it plods along toward a predictable conclusion under oppressively heavy and dark atmospherics. An okay journeyman effort, what the film lacks in story it makes up for with attitude, music, drama, and art. Worth a look for those into B-flick drama with liturgical overtones.

Richard Greico can't act. He's good-looking, but he can't act. Dennis Hopper, however, CAN act and that's why I was so surprised to see him in such a bad movie. The basic premise of this film is that an art expert can use his knowledge of art and what a 'painting' tells him about its artist to help track down a killer, even with no other clues. Believable? No! This one is not worth your time.

This movie was a mess. It had the absolute worst editing I have ever seen. It was almost like at the end of a scene the writer wanted to go to commercial, and the filmmaker added a second of black screen to fulfill the writers dream.

Under the messy direction and editing, there was a glimmer of something good. A good idea, a compelling spark. But somewhere it went wrong.

The story is about a quasi-psychic priest who is trying to solve a string of murders. The first thing that is hard to bite into is Richard Grieco as a priest. Well the part doesn't call for him to be a good priest and he succeeds rather well. The second problem is Dennis Hopper as the crazy bad guy. He always plays the crazy bad guy. Very ho hum.

Oh, a thought occured to me that maybe all the jumpy, horrible editing and disconnected plot was trying to add a sense of the confusion the character (Grieco) was experiencing. And just to prove that it was contrived they rolled the credits backwords. Not a good sign for any movie.

This is one of Richard Grieco's finest performances. He's totally absent of any actor pretense and totally absorbed into his character. Richard reaches real emotional depths. This film is not for everyone but if you want to see real acting watch this one.

First of all, what is good in the movie ? Some pretty actress ? the exotic background ? the fact that the actors don't laugh while acting (I would have if I had been in their situation) ? I don't know. The storyline is simple : a catholic priest who does abstract painting tries to find out who (another abstract painter) killed his little brother, a male prostitute (raped by another priest when he was young...). I'm afraid there is nothing here to learn or to let think a little about serial killers, art or religion. Dennis Hopper is not very good here. This is the worst episode of the worst season of "profiler" (the serie) with replacement actors and unbelievable coincidences (the uncle is the policeman who, the girl who lives at another victim's house could have a baby with the priest, etc., etc).