I don't consider myself to be a particularly religious person so the controversial (anti-protestant) stance didn't really faze me (although I can easily understand if others are offended by this film). My main issues with this film extend to the following;
This is quite a chaotic picture and it seemed to me that Russell was more bothered about causing controversy and shocking his audience at the expense of telling a potentially interesting true story. I must admit some of the early scenes were quite disturbing, but for the first hour it was just overkill as the film went from one over the top sequence to another. We're then treated to a lot of incomprehensible dialogue, ridiculous set-pieces, over the top acting. Lots of things happened in the first hour that seemed to do nothing to advance the story. Now I'm not the sort of person to pan a film just because it's controversial (A Clockwork Orange is a great film which also caused a lot of controversy in its day), but the thing that harms this film so much is that it's so boring. No matter how much I tried, I just could not get involved in the story - the shock factor is OK at first, but when there's nothing of substance to back it up, it grows repetitive and starts to feel like a bit of a gimmick.
Russell does start to show some focus in the final 30 minutes or so, but even in these final 30 minutes we're treated to some rather formulaic plot twists that did nothing to improve my opinion of the film as a whole.
Looking at the acting then again I'll use the words 'over the top'. Redgrave spends the whole time with her head cocked to the left and either speaks at about 3 decibels or shouts at about 300 decibels. Reed fared slightly better, although there were many occasions when he seemed to speak then shout when delivering his lines. The worst offender was Michael Gothard as Father Barre whose acting was embarrassingly bad.
This is a shocking film, but there is one thing I can think of that is more shocking than this film and that is..... it's IMDb rating. 7.8 for this monstrosity is taking the proverbial. I found it boring, ridiculous and quite empty if I'm honest. A truly awful film that I have no desire to ever watch again.
This is quite a chaotic picture and it seemed to me that Russell was more bothered about causing controversy and shocking his audience at the expense of telling a potentially interesting true story. I must admit some of the early scenes were quite disturbing, but for the first hour it was just overkill as the film went from one over the top sequence to another. We're then treated to a lot of incomprehensible dialogue, ridiculous set-pieces, over the top acting. Lots of things happened in the first hour that seemed to do nothing to advance the story. Now I'm not the sort of person to pan a film just because it's controversial (A Clockwork Orange is a great film which also caused a lot of controversy in its day), but the thing that harms this film so much is that it's so boring. No matter how much I tried, I just could not get involved in the story - the shock factor is OK at first, but when there's nothing of substance to back it up, it grows repetitive and starts to feel like a bit of a gimmick.
Russell does start to show some focus in the final 30 minutes or so, but even in these final 30 minutes we're treated to some rather formulaic plot twists that did nothing to improve my opinion of the film as a whole.
Looking at the acting then again I'll use the words 'over the top'. Redgrave spends the whole time with her head cocked to the left and either speaks at about 3 decibels or shouts at about 300 decibels. Reed fared slightly better, although there were many occasions when he seemed to speak then shout when delivering his lines. The worst offender was Michael Gothard as Father Barre whose acting was embarrassingly bad.
This is a shocking film, but there is one thing I can think of that is more shocking than this film and that is..... it's IMDb rating. 7.8 for this monstrosity is taking the proverbial. I found it boring, ridiculous and quite empty if I'm honest. A truly awful film that I have no desire to ever watch again.