I delitti del rosario

As slow-burns go, Fred Walton's mysterious catholic-bounded thriller takes the cake with its minimal and sombre treatment. It's one of those progressive and morally hounded plots (from William X. Kienzle's novel), which is a puzzle to decipher, as you find yourself also personally getting involved with the brooding investigation with realistic characters. Some of the scheming is a bit hard to swallow, but for most part it's smartly penned (by Elmore Leonard and Fred Walton) and the low-key approach seems to make you concentrate on the lyrical waxing (especially on those commitments to the priesthood and the self-doubting). However the pacing seemed to plod a bit too much, where some monotonous patches seemed to lose focus. Two stalwart figure heads; an impressive Donald Sutherland and equally so Charles Durning are engagingly strong. Sutherland has a sincere presence about him, that even if he looks half-asleep. He's still watchable. Josef Sommer and Belinda Bauer offer able support. Walton's direction is slickly presented, but feels shapeless and dry. At least he did construct a subtle, startlingly dreary atmosphere and the music score etches out a placidly haunting vibe. The violence happened mostly off-screen, but managed to leave a chilling mark and the Detroit setting complements the weary imprint. A sleepy and glum, but well-acted and rather moving thriller.

Donald Sutherland is a Detroit priest who hears the confession of a serial killer with a grudge against the clergy, and is later forced by the ethics of his vocation to (reluctantly) hunt down the murderer himself, unearthing a spine-chilling string of motivation behind each new death. It could have been just another routine shocker, but a clever script and some unusually taciturn direction turns the otherwise familiar material into a modest but intriguing whodunit (actually more a 'whydunit') set against the rituals and mysteries of the Catholic Church, always a reliable source of guilt and intrigue. The steady accumulation of clues and evidence is interrupted only by an unsurprising (and unnecessary) romantic subplot, which happily compromises neither the mystery itself nor Sutherland's oath of celibacy.

Donald Sutherland is good, but he can't make this film worth seeing all by himself. The director doesn't seem to have the temperament that's needed for a successful thriller, the plot moves slowly and monotonously, and the whole thing just plods on to an ending that fails to explain the killer's motivation satisfyingly. (*1/2)

Though not as riveting as its premise will have you believe, The Rosary Murders still manages to deliver moments of tension & suspense within a monotonously executed drama and is anchored by Donald Sutherland's measured performance as a conflicted priest. A run-of-the-mill effort at best when it comes to direction, the story is undone by its long runtime, an unnecessary subplot that goes nowhere & more but the mood & build-up before the serial killings is done well and the dilemma our protagonist faces is rendered with sincerity, along with the conflicted interpretation of Church law & teachings. However, the picture as a whole needed a tightly-edited plot to keep things interesting throughout and carries the look n feel of a TV film in more ways than one.

I grew up in Detroit, so it's surprising that I've never seen this film. I played college baseball, and one of the guys on our team went to high school at Holy Redeemer (the church in this movie), so it was interesting to me in that way, as I'd never seen this church before.

The thing that bothered me as the movie ended is why the killer was killing Catholic priests and nuns. Maybe it was there and I missed it, but the end of the movie left me thinking "why?". After watching the whole movie, I felt let down at the ending.

Father Koesler (Sutherland) seemed to me to be less than devoted to his calling. Why did he break Catholic rules and baptize a baby born out of wedlock? Whether or not that's a good rule, he is required to abide by it, not pick and choose which he'll obey and which he'll ignore. And why did he break into someone's house? Why would a priest commit a felony?

I'm considering re-watching this film to see if I missed a few things.