The Reckoning

The Reckoning

Directed by: Paul McGuigan

Starring: Paul Bettany

Genre: Thriller/ Action-Adventure

Run Time: 112 min.

Release Date: March 2004

On The Web: Official Site

Teaser: Movie Trailer

Reviewed by Byron Merritt

THE RECKONING is one of those films that grows on you as you continue watching. Shakespearean in quality, and beautifully filmed in Andalucia, Spain and at Hedingham Castle near Essex, England, the 14th century period piece is given over to some excellent shots of the landscape as well as some impressive acting.

Paul Bettany (THE DA VINCI CODE) stars as Nicholas, a priest on the lam after fornicating with a married woman and then accidentally killing her husband in self-defense. Hiding out in the forest, Nicholas encounters a troupe of hard-worn actors traveling between towns. Amongst them is their new leader Martin (Willem Dafoe, THE BOONDOCK SAINTS), Tobias (Brian Cox, RUNNING WITH SCISSORS), Sarah (Gina McKee, MIRRORMASK), and Stephen (Simon McBurney, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND). Initially unwilling to take on a new person, the company neglects Nicholas’ advances to join up with them. But through persistence, they eventually take him into their confidence.

Nicholas moves farther and farther away from his old township but closer and closer to danger as his morality catches up with him via a deaf, healer wrongfully accused of killing a young boy. Martin (Dafoe), tired of doing the same old religious plays, decides to visit the condemned woman to find out why she did it and to see if they can make a new stage show out of it. Nicholas accompanies him and what they discover is chilling. They both know she couldn’t have done it via time-frames and her location at the time of the murder. But they can’t go against the leader of the town, Lord De Guise (Vincent Cassel, OCEAN’S TWELVE), who’s legal council has already convicted her.

When the new play runs for the first time, the townspeople shout it down, telling the players that the boy couldn’t have died at the hands of the healing, deaf woman. Faced with revealing Lord De Guise’s wrongful imprisonment and perhaps exposing someone close to his Lordship, the acting company must make a self-sacrificing decision. And it is during this time that Nicholas’ dirty little secret about why he left his hometown comes seeping out.

More a character piece than its labeled “thriller/action” genre, The Reckoning has some strong performances from Dafoe, Cox, Bettany and the perfectly evil Cassel.

The downside to the story is that it takes a while (quite a while) to get moving. But for those who hang in there til the end, the reward is worth it.