The Order - Would You Like Fries With That?

my rating:

I was afraid Nathan was going to want to see Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star starring David Spade. Spade has yet to entice me laugh at anything he's ever done, and the only movies he's been in that I enjoyed at all had nothing to do with his involvement. In a freudian slip of the tongue, I referred to his new film once as Dickie Roberts: Former Child Porn Star, and frankly that sounds like it would be funnier - if it were written by and starred someone else - than what I've seen in the trailer for this film.

Anyway, I managed to steer Nathan into seeing The Order instead. Not that I really wanted to see it, and the fact that the critics weren't allowed to preview it was a very bad sign (e.g. From Justin to Kelly), but I've already seen everything else worth seeing at the cineplexes, and I figured it'd be better than having to sit through David Spade: Former SNL Star. Besides, Heath Ledger's nice to look at.

It's not bad, but not very remarkable either. The premise of the story is that there is someone called a "sin eater" who - for reasons never really explained - is able to consume a dying person's sins (through the instrument of a piece of bread), thereby absolving that person of any guilt and giving him a free pass into Heaven... but since he operates outside of the hierarchy of the church, and Catholic doctrine says that salvation only comes through the church, he's a heretic and the Vatican's representative wants Ledger's character to kill him. In defiance of both common sense and Christian theology, this sin-eating makes the guy essentially immortal. But Ledger's something of a rogue priest, acting in defiance of the hierarchy, secretly longing for a woman, etc. posing all kinds of moral dilemmas or something.

The whole thing takes some familiarity with Catholic theology to even get at handle on, but anyone with enough background to get it will also see that it makes no sense. The notion that anyone can bypass the rules to get someone into Heaven - i.e. doing so in violation of God's laws - is logically absurd. If God allows the loophole to exist, then God must approve of it. The movie suggests that sometimes the sin-eater can do The Right Thing, such as granting a Get Out of Hell Free card to someone the church had groundlessly excommunicated. I assume this is the role the historical "sin eaters" took upon, acting as freelance forgivers, granting the comfort of "absolution" to individuals the Catholic church had shut out for what amounted to bureaucratic technicalities.

All of which just underscores what a ridiculous charade the whole thing is. You've got your authorised absolutionists with their Official Roman Catholic brand purification rites, and your grey-market absolutionists with their own little private-label ritual. More than anything else, it reminds me of the "faith healing" charlatans who'd perform their little shows with chicken innards to trick idiots into thinking that they were magically removing some ailment from a sick person. Same thing; different song and dance. And all this movie does is show how this "sin eater" schtick is no different from the wafer-serving schtick offered weekly at your local Roman Catholic outlet.