The Last Sin Eater

I saw a pre-screening for "The Last Sin Easter" land it is a wonderful movie. The location was beautiful and the acting was outstanding – especially by Liana Liberato as well as Soren Fulton. Liana was amazing as Cadi Forbes. Other standouts: Stewart Finlay-McLennan was excellent and brought a lot of energy and ferocity to his role as the tyrant of the cove, Brogan Kai, and Henry Thomas was very good as the kind, sympathetic Man of God. Actually, all the actors did a very nice job. Plus, Brian Bird did a phenomenal job of orchestrating the essential, intricate plot and back-stories of the book into a movie script. The directing was good as well.

A book character, Cadi's brother, was left out completely and the emphasis on the other "bad" Kai boys was also left out too but it is understandable that it was necessary in order to give more time to the main characters and their actions. The identity of Miz Elda (Louise Fletcher) and her relationship to Iona Kai and her friendship with Granny Forbes was not brought to light either but it wasn't necessary to understand that each child, Cadi and Fagan, had a trusting friendship with this woman. Gervase O'Dara's character was not as prominent as in the book, but, again a necessary omission for the time constraints of a movie. Therefore, I feel those out there who, like me, read and enjoyed the book, will not be disappointed at all (as sometimes happens with books being made into movies) because, as stated before, Brian Bird did an outstanding job of conveying the most important aspects and scenes of the book into the movie script. I highly recommend this movie, as it is certainly complementary of the book.

Not to give away the ending but things were only very slightly changed from what I recall of the book and not quite as harsh. I liked the ending a lot but would have enjoyed a little longer monologue from Cadi telling us more of what happened to the cove and some of the people, but it still tied things together very nicely and was beautifully done.

Although the movie does not leave you cheering, laughing or weeping it does have you leaving the theater very hopeful and satisfied as well as a bit contemplative. Jesus is given credit for being the true, original sin eater yet, for non-Christians, the movie is not preachy. It is a lovely movie and would be a good addition, when it comes out on DVD, to anyone's home library. Congratulations to all those who were involved from the grippers, make-up artists, drivers, and the other crewmembers to the cast, writers, producers and director.

This movie had very good elements, a grieving family, a community secret, dark undertones, a message of hope.....but it was all destroyed by the editing. While this movie was being filmed, the emotions were palpable on the set; the hair on the back of my neck stood up many times. Unfortunately, the director was so concerned about not showing any violence on screen, that all the passion was edited out.

Mr. Landon edited the most emotional scenes like it was an MTV video. He did not allow many of the camera shots to stay with one character for more than 2 seconds. This created very choppy scenes and disconnected his audience from the story. Mr. Landon did allow the scenic shots to pan, and zoom in (they were beautiful shots due to the DP), but we could have done with shorter scenic shots and longer camera time during the emotional scenes.

The three most disappointing scenes were Brogan Kai choking Caddie, the Sin Eater taking Caddie's sins away, and the Indian Massacre scenes. When these were being filmed, many of the crew had tears in their eyes. You could have heard a pin drop, no one was breathing. These were intense, emotional scenes, and Mr. Landon edited them down to very bad, home movie play-acting.

It is ashame, because Mr. Landon directed this film very nicely, and the original camera shots stayed on the actors for a much longer time. Mr. Landon should not have been allowed in the editing room.

This is a good film to watch. Although it has the low-budget feeling, it promotes a good message. It passes a good message, and shows a twist on traditional practices. Not your average movie, that contains sex or gore. The slow developing plot took a little bit to even figure out what the movie was about. The accents are a little off, i agree to that. But who honestly knows what the accents where back then. When everyone was moving west, it was a major culture collision. The only thing I would have changed was a more developing plot towards the ending. "The Dark Secret," didn't even come into play till the last minutes. No reference point what-so-ever to what it was actually was.

I watch these missionary films from time to time. There is an earnestness in most of them that makes up for the fact that they are so horrible.

In my city is Pat Robertson's film school, training hundreds of people a year to make these things. I often wonder what will happen when they actually are able to make good movies?

I am beginning to believe that this may never happen. Film may be making Christianity obsolete. I know this may sound strange. Cinema seems profoundly malleable, a vehicle for any story. And Christianity has survived by adapting far, far from what Jesus believed, making any necessary compromise.

But film has rather rigid dynamics when combined with the forces of how we define ourselves through stories. It is extremely flexible, but only within a conceptual marketplace where the collective projections of self reinforce each other. Cinema allows us to define our own cosmos. It worries me that the rivers are sometimes so banal, but such the way of the collective — and young imaginations have surprising sophistication.

Christianity on the other hand is about accepting a prefabricated story. Well, different ones depending on the preacher's agenda, but the cosmos is defined in a very top down manner. Theoretically, they could overlap a lot, but that is not what the world seems to want. Even the most obvious Jesus stories like Harry Potter don't follow the rules of the Christian institution.

This film has prompted me to believe that it may be impossible to make powerful cinema with the existing dogma. Everything about it fails.

The irony is that the story flows are about rigid superstition being made obsolete, not by the Bible in the story, but because people simply want to explain for themselves what the world is.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

First off the budget is small so be kind. Its a pretty solid story although it probably could have been fleshed out and feels a little disjointed in places. It is still a solid film and an excellent addition for fans of Christian films, unlike many Christian films it does not whitewash its message.

The best part of the film is the performance of Peter Wingfield as the Sin Eater. While he is almost a minor character as far as screen time his performance makes the film. His voice is so sorrowful in his scenes (he is hidden for the majority of the movie) that you could just sob for him. His pathos is spot on. He is not overly dramatic but succeeds in selling the believability of the film.