The Reckoning - Percorsi criminali

I've watched this movie 4 times in the last three days, and I'm still not sure I've grokked all of its subtleties yet. Beautiful, yes -- the village set is a series of enclosures, mazes within mazes, that contribute to the entrapped mood surrounding the characters. Even in the scenes outside the village, the woods and hills close in around the actors, like the enfolding wings and backdrops of a stage. The closeups are unsettlingly revealing - filthy fingers with smooth nails using a sharp, rough flint to cut hair down to the scalp....dark eyes revealing everything and nothing....a hand laid caressingly near the jugular....strong fingers....and Paul Bettany's disturbing blue eyes. I can't say enough about Bettany's take on the outcast priest -- he manages moral outrage and submissive pathos with equal ease, and his smiles always have a hint of tears behind them. A haunting performance -- I would go across the world to see Bettany play Hamlet or Macbeth.

The yarn talks upon a priest (Paul Bettany) who is joined with a comedian actors troupe (Willem Dafoe, Gina McKee, Brian Cox , among others). They will arrive in a village with a rousing castle ruled by a tyrant (Vincent Cassel). There happens one murder and is framed a deaf-mute woman (Elvira Minguez). The priest discovers the killing has occurred and attempt to solve it by recreating the crime in a play .

The film deals with Dark Ages , it's time of destruction , hunger, deceases and rampage . It's developed in 14th century , England , during King Richard's time , the Normans vanquished Saxons . War and pest originated millions of deaths . The story mingles medieval set , drama, suspense , sexual situations , a love story and is entertaining enough . The motion picture was in great majority directed in Spain (Andalucia) and has breathtaking scenarios . The movie obtained a limited success , in the United States got a resounding flop and achieved a lukewarm reception by the public ; however Europe attained more box office because is a European film more than American . The picture gets a certain resemblance to ¨The name of the rose¨ , thus the Medieval time , suspense , thrills and intrigue about killing . The main actors are very well , Paul Bettany and Willem Dafoe's interpretations are top notch likeness to support cast as Brian Cox, Ewen Bremmer, James Cosmo, Matthew Mac Fadden , all of them are outstanding . Cinematography by Peter Soba is magnificent and Mark Mancina's musical score is atmospheric . The movie is correctly directed by Paul McGuigan.

Rating : Good. Well worth watching.

A gem of a film. Artistic without being pretentious, moving without being cliché. Paul Bettany is completely believable as a tormented priest, Willem Dafoe is as always intense and a joy to watch. The movie takes place in the dark ages mostly in a small outpost in the English countryside. A woman is wrongly accused of murder and a traveling troupe of actors, lead by Dafoe, enters the town and becomes involved in clearing her name of the accusation.

I was most impressed with the set they used for the village, it's incredible. The set immerses you in the desperate and dramatic feel of the film properly. The film has an authentic theatrical feel to it. More like it's being acted on stage rather than on location. I recommend this well acted tale.

Director Paul McGuigan gathers a team of excellent actors in this medieval mystery drama. This is not an easy genre, although there are excellent books to start from and at least one film to remember, 'The Name of the Rose' that was a great success a couple of decades ago. In 'Reckoning' the staging of the action is very good, the characters are strong and credible, and the atmosphere of the time - 14th century England - makes it to the screen. The story of an ex-priest joining a group of actors who get involved in a crime and wrong justice story in a village they perform is quite interesting, at least at the beginning. Paul Bettamy and William Defoe give good performances, and the rest of the team is not far behind. The problem is with the story - it starts well leading to a theater in movie scene which is the key of the whole movie. The mistake in the script is that this scene comes too early, and the rest of the story is too easy to predict and not interesting enough. I lost interest in the second half, and it looked like the director also ran out of ideas, most of the best visuals are in the first half, the second just repeats what we saw in the first and in many other films. Overall a movie above average, 7 out of 10 on my personal scale.

The mission of the movie seems to be to portray how things were in the middle ages, and while I think it's a pretty good and well-acted movie with a relevant story, I doubt that most of the main characters' actions and way of thinking are anywhere near historically accurate. The year is 1380. What's all this about voting?? And the priest's sense of justice seems just a wee bit too well-developed. And would the actors turn around to help a deaf and dumb condemned prisoner that they practically didn't know? Doesn't feel realistic to me. The movie seems glazed over with a lot of modern sentiment and sense of justice (and democracy!), which essentially turns it into light entertainment rather than a serious story. But at its heart it does have a message of showing how the powerful used to prey on the powerless (and, indirectly, how they still do today), and as such does contribute something to the current mass audience's understanding of history and the world.

7 out of 10.