"The Reckoning" is one of those movies that starts off well but then falls apart in the second half.
Paul Bettany stars as Nicholas, a priest in the Middle Ages who is forced to flee his village when he is caught en flagrante with another man's wife. While hiding in the woods, he encounters a troupe of traveling actors who allow him to join their company. When they arrive at a nearby city, they discover that a woman there has just been sentenced to death for the murder of a young boy. When the troupe decides to reenact the crime in a performance for the townspeople, Nicholas, while doing the research, becomes convinced that the woman is innocent and that the lord of the town himself may be the guilty party.
For the first half hour or so, the movie has us hooked with the novelty of the setting and the masterful way in which the art direction, costume design and cinematography capture the look and feel of life in late 14th Century England. The plot in its initial stages retains just enough ambiguity to keep us intrigued about where exactly it is headed. Unfortunately, about midway through the film, the story addresses that very question and it turns out to be a not very satisfactory answer. As Nicholas becomes more and more overtly involved with solving the mystery and more and more involved in the life of the villagers, the story itself become more and more contrived and melodramatic. We simply don't believe much of what we see happening on the screen, neither the acting troupe's dramatization of the events nor Nicholas' face-to-face confrontation with the evil lord of the city. The scenes in the story are put forward in such a theatrical way that the film begins to feel less like real life and more like the movies. It probably doesn't help that Bettany and Willem Dafoe as the head of the actor's ensemble deliver fairly bland, lackluster performances.
I wanted to like "The Reckoning" very much, and for a while I really thought I would. But the elements just don't come together in any convincing, meaningful way and so we are left largely disappointed at the end.
Paul Bettany stars as Nicholas, a priest in the Middle Ages who is forced to flee his village when he is caught en flagrante with another man's wife. While hiding in the woods, he encounters a troupe of traveling actors who allow him to join their company. When they arrive at a nearby city, they discover that a woman there has just been sentenced to death for the murder of a young boy. When the troupe decides to reenact the crime in a performance for the townspeople, Nicholas, while doing the research, becomes convinced that the woman is innocent and that the lord of the town himself may be the guilty party.
For the first half hour or so, the movie has us hooked with the novelty of the setting and the masterful way in which the art direction, costume design and cinematography capture the look and feel of life in late 14th Century England. The plot in its initial stages retains just enough ambiguity to keep us intrigued about where exactly it is headed. Unfortunately, about midway through the film, the story addresses that very question and it turns out to be a not very satisfactory answer. As Nicholas becomes more and more overtly involved with solving the mystery and more and more involved in the life of the villagers, the story itself become more and more contrived and melodramatic. We simply don't believe much of what we see happening on the screen, neither the acting troupe's dramatization of the events nor Nicholas' face-to-face confrontation with the evil lord of the city. The scenes in the story are put forward in such a theatrical way that the film begins to feel less like real life and more like the movies. It probably doesn't help that Bettany and Willem Dafoe as the head of the actor's ensemble deliver fairly bland, lackluster performances.
I wanted to like "The Reckoning" very much, and for a while I really thought I would. But the elements just don't come together in any convincing, meaningful way and so we are left largely disappointed at the end.