It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Alex Bernier (Heath Ledger) is a priest and a Carolingians. The Dark Pope or Sin Eater can remove sin from anyone who can then go to heaven. This is heresy to the Roman Catholic Church. Mara Williams (Shannyn Sossamon) escaped from the asylum after shooting Alex during an exorcism. Alex and Mara go to Rome after the death of the Carolingian leader who was killed by the mysterious Sin Eater. Alex has to hunt him down with the help of fellow Carolingian Thomas Garrett (Mark Addy) under the command of Driscoll (Peter Weller).It's a rare thing to say but this movie needs more exposition. It's a mess of a story that somebody needs to explain to the audience. It doesn't work as a supernatural action movie either. Writing/director Brian Helgeland calls in his actors from 'A Knight's Tale' but this is a diametrically opposite movie. There are some silly looking stuff that are suppose to be seriously dark. None of it actually works.

Like Roman Polanski's "The Ninth Gate", Brian Helgeland's "The Sin Eater" (aka "The Order") is a tongue-in-cheek paranormal horror movie which blends comedy, Gothic decor and religious frights with a noir plot. Surprisingly, the film works best as a romance.The plot: Heath Ledger is a Vatican super-priest who, along with his buddy, a jovial exorcist played by Mark Addy, attempts to track down a "sin eater", an immortal "man" who absolves dying humans of their sins. Most of the film's "horror moments" don't work, thanks to unnecessary and unimaginative CGI, but Helgeland's comedic touch and matter-of-fact handling of the material – the priests battle demons without batting an eyelid, repelling devils like they've been doing this for years – helps offset this.The plot takes an interesting turn during the last act, the "sin eater" revealed to be not some super villain, but a tortured and somewhat upstanding guy. Ledger's repressed love for an ex mental patient played by Shannyn Sossamon leads to the film's best moments. The film features some good Italian architecture, and works well as a pop-corn noir with occult overtones.7.5/10 – Worth one viewing.

Perhaps if The Order came out in 2007 onward, I would've called this a rip-off of The Da Vinci Code. So, even though this is my first viewing, I have to reverse that statement.They were both "mystery, suspenseful, anti-catholic" thrillers, and neither of which I liked. I will say this: using the famous phrase, this is the lesser of both evils.The problems I had with this movie, I will admit, are my own problems. The first half of this movie confused the crap out of me, and I nearly lost interest multiple times, caring less on where these characters were headed or what fates they will face. But, since I bought it – thank GOD, it was a used $1.99 Blockbuster copy, and even then I think I overspent by $1.98 – I followed through to the end.The cloud of confusion lifted about the half-way mark and remarkably, it became enormously straightforward and definitely predictable. So, if you didn't like it up front, it only goes downhill when everything's revealed. As does most of the silly special effects.Typically, I give a synopsis in my reviews, but, again, since my head was spinning for half the feature, I'll give what I remember of the film. Priest/warrior/dark knight Bernier (Ledger – in one of his worst acting jobs I've seen from the late and brilliant actor) has his own justice league made up of recently released convict Sinclair (Sossamon) and Garrett (the usually funny, but barely here, Addy.) I'm guessing here (so, forgive my ignorance) they like to hunt bad spirits, or bad men, or just strange phenomenons surrounding the Faith. When Bernier's mentor gets killed, Bernier's gather up his ghostbusters to go find the murderer even though the Catholic faith might be compromised! There's also some evil high priest, I think that's what he was, whose identity is seen a mile away (even in the confusing first half.) Bernier's eventually left with some tough choices when he encounters the very bad man/"killer." Normally, I would think his "mind-game" type dialogue was good or better, but it all felt so mediocre at best.I would say skip this very boring, so-called "action" movie and even though The Da Vinci Code's not much better, it's still 3-4 steps ahead.

This should have retained the title Sineater since thats more to the point of what the film is about. This is one of those movies that shows signs of being tinkered with, mostly in that chunks of it don't make sense, or a sense that seems to have been cut out. Basically the film has Heath Ledger as a priest going to Rome to investigate the death of the head of his order. Its more complicated than that, and for a good chunk of it, it doesn't make sense, not that it ever fully does. Frankly for good or bad this film is going to stay with me for a long time. Its not what ever it was advertised as, its an occult mystery thats closer to the Club Dumas, the source of the Johnny Depp movie, the 9th Gate, than to a conventional horror film. I like the film. Its very flawed but its interesting enough and raises some good questions about salvation and the church. If you want to try something different, and don't mind that its not perfect, I say try this. (forgive me there is an urge to wax poetic about bits of it...)