Alex Bernier (Heath Ledger) is a member of an arcane order of priests who is sent to Rome to investigate the mysterious death of the head of this order. The body may be of a Sin Eater, a renegade who offers absolution, last rites and therefore a path to heaven outside the jurisdiction of the church. Alex enlists the aid of his old comrade Father Thomas and of a troubled artist (Shannyn Sossamon) upon whom he once performed an exorcism. He soon finds himself plunged directly into the face of unimaginable evil, murder, and ultimately, a fate worse than death. The Order will find you!Writer-director Brian Helgeland tried something different with The Order, and surely that counts for something. This brooding supernatural thriller was immediately dismissed by critics, and it’s easy to see why it flopped: it’s full of solemn, quasi-religious ruminations, it’s murky in both visual and thematic content, and it demands the viewer’s focused attention, which amounts to pissing in the shallow pool of big-studio filmmaking. And yet those qualities also give The Order some modest cult potential, as it tells the story of Alex (Heath Ledger, star of Helgeland’s A Knight’s Tale), a rebellious priest from an arcane fringe of Catholicism, who investigates the death of his excommunicated mentor and discovers the existence of a modern day “sin eater,” capable of cleansing souls of evil, who has chosen Alex as his would-be successor. A troubled love interest (Knight’s Tale costar Shannyn Sossamon) and an evil cardinal (Peter Weller) offer hope and damnation, respectively, but it’s up to individual viewers to decide if The Order offers anything of lasting interest. –Jeff Shannon

List Price: $ 9.98

Price: $ 1.94