BEFORE: OK, a word before I get going today, here in the "before" section, about the concept of "before". Usually I write this section before I watch the day's movie, but just as often, I start the movie late in the night of the day before I count it on, so often I do watch the movie before writing the "before". Often this means I've got nothing to say, because whatever happened to me that day (before) I managed to write about on that day, and I may wait to see what happens to be on the day of before writing the "before". In other words, I'm admitting that sometimes my "before" was really written "after". Such is the case today.
Today a group of armed militants, spurred on by our PRESIDENT, attacked and broke into the U.S. Capitol building, not-so-coincidentally on the day of the certification of the Electoral College results. In fact, this disgusting act took place most likely BECAUSE the Electoral College results were being certified, and this was the last act of a desperate man who can't seem to acknowledge his own defeat, and who refuses to give up the power he has obtained, so he's been lying to the American people for months about the election being rigged, filing dozens of frivolous and unwarranted lawsuits in multiple states to reverse or discredit election results, and then strongly implying that his Vice President should violate the Constitution and not certify but instead CHALLENGE the results of the Electoral College, which in turn represent the votes and collective will of the American people.
So I want to instead use this "before", which is really an "after", I admit, to point out that my schedule was worked out weeks ago, and there's no meaning implied by the choice of a film called "The Reckoning", and any resemblance between this film and the day's events is pure coincidence, but I've seen so many coincidences in my 13 years of doing this that I sometimes feel that an unseen hand is influencing my movie choices. It's not true, but it just sometimes feels that way.
Tom Hardy carries over from "Warrior". I had much debate last night over putting this one here, because it's not really a "Tom Hardy movie", not in the way that "Warrior" is, or that an upcoming film like "Capone" might be. Tom Hardy has a small role here, it's from before he really became a star actor or a Batman villain - so technically it's probably more of a Willem Dafoe movie or a Paul Bettany movie. Therefore I thought, "Maybe I should save it, for a Willem Dafoe chain later on, it may have more meaning that way." Eh, I've got a few Willem Dafoe films, and a few other Paul Bettany films, but I'm no rush to get to them. So for my purposes, regardless of the size of his role here, I'm going to proceed and treat this like a Tom Hardy movie, and I hope I don't regret this, like if I could have used this one to get out of a linking jam later this year.
(The other WIllem Dafoe movies and the other Paul Bettany movies are on streaming, I think, and this one I dubbed off of cable and I have the DVD in hand - watching this one therefore opens up a slot on the main list, instead of removing a film from the subsidiary list of films that are currently streaming somewhere...)
THE PLOT: A priest on the lam takes up with a traveling band of actors, who then discover a murder has occurred and try to solve it by recreating the crime in a play.
AFTER: Well, I don't want to give anything away about the ending, but it's another case where divine providence won out. Watching this film today, of all days, which again was purely accidental on my part, now seems very appropriate. The plot concerns a person of power who (eventually) gets accused of serious misdeeds, and is (again, eventually) taken down by a mob of concerned and angry citizens. Any resemblance to the Donald Trump story is quite coincidental, but also will be celebrated by me, ex post facto. Also, this is set during a time when the Plague was a valid concern, and we've still got our own pandemic raging in the world right now.
The crime is different, though, here it's murder combined with a number of "unspeakable" acts, and since this story takes place back in the 1300's that's probably code for gay stuff. Pedophilia most likely, and it only comes to light after a traveling troupe of actors desperately turns to the news and rumors floating around a town in order to create a new play, as the crowds have grown very tired of Biblical re-enactments as moral fables. I'm not exactly sure that this is how improv theater was born - or that you can trace a connection between events like this and the "ripped from the headlines" tactics used by "Law & Order: SVU".
(I've always noticed the discrepancy in the practices of the "Law & Order" makers - they promote the show's plot as being "ripped from the headlines", but then they also have to run a disclaimer, for legal reasons, that the story is NOT based on any specific actual events. Well, which is it, Dick Wolf?).
This story begins with a priest who is disgraced after a dalliance with a married woman, and forced to escape from his parish to avoid prosecution. One night in the woods he happens upon a group of people killing someone, and in his haste to run away, he makes noise and is discovered and captured. The group turns out to be a troupe of actors who killed one of their members who was very sick, so it was a mercy killing. The priest is relieved to find he hasn't joined a band of murderers, but then probably just as disappointed when he finds out they're actors. (Great, so they're without morals AND extremely poor...)
He joins their band because he believes their Bible plays serve a purpose, and also agrees to give last rites to their departed member once they reach the next town. This is where the troupe's terrible ticket sales lead them to invent this new kind of storytelling, with a play based on the events of a local boy's murder. A mute woman is being charged with murder, and because she's mute she's also unable to defend herself, so the lead actor/playwright becomes a sort of amateur detective after talking to the accused via rudimentary sign language. The ex-priest even digs up the body of the boy to try to determine the cause of death. (Some liberties are taken here, because this was set hundreds of years before any organized concept of forensics, although people back then perhaps understand what rigor mortis was, and how long it lasts...)
The King's Justice appears on the scene, and he's willing to overlook a bit of corpse exhumation, as he's also noticed that wherever the town's Lord travels, young boys seem to disappear there to. This also sort of resembles modern crime-solving techniques like establishing a pattern among a large number of cases, and then cross-referencing those cases against the travel history of a suspect. But here's where the Trump-related stuff comes into play, because the Lord believes he's invulnerable under the feudal system for any crimes. (Remember, Trump stated he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue in NYC and not be prosecuted for it. We'll see, some of that could change after he's out of office...)
I'm reminded of two other stories here, one is the 1986 movie "The Name of the Rose", which similarly depicted the solving of a murder in a medieval abbey (it's been too long since I've seen it, perhaps I'm due for a re-watch) and the other, of course, is "Hamlet", in which a troupe of actors performs a play that depicts a murder that is very similar to the events around the death of Hamlet's father, by which the king's brother killed the king, then married the queen to become the new king. (This storyline was also depicted, albeit in comic form, in the movie "Strange Brew", where Claude Elsinore killed his brother and married Pam's mother, Gertrude, to become the owner of Elsinore Brewery. And who played Brewmeister Smith in that movie? Max von Sydow - I'm getting closer to his movies...)
For a real historical reference, however, you can look up Gilles de Rais, a real nobleman from the 1400's who did perform a number of "unspeakable acts". There are some notable flaws here in this film, however, largely resulting from characters in the 1300's somehow having advance knowledge of how theater would work in the future, in addition to forensics. And also the fact that Tom Hardy's character had to play all the female roles in the plays, it seems. (Cannot unsee!)
Also starring Paul Bettany (last seen in "The Young Victoria"), Willem Dafoe (last seen in "The Last Thing He Wanted"), Brian Cox (last seen in "Churchill"), Gina McKee (last seen in "Phantom Thread"), Simon McBurney (last seen in "The Duchess"), Stuart Wells (last seen in "Billy Elliot"), Vincent Cassel (last seen in "Tale of Tales"), Ewen Bremner (last seen in "Fool's Gold"), Mark Benton (last seen in "Eddie the Eagle"), Hamish McColl (last seen in "Paddington"), Matthew Macfadyen (last seen in "Anna Karenina"), Marian Aguilera, Trevor Steedman, Elvira Minguez, Luke de Woolfson, with cameos from Simon Pegg (last heard in "The Cloverfield Paradox"), James Cosmo (last seen in "Outlaw King").
RATING: 4 out of 10 crude masks
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