The Reckoning [2003] Willem Dafoe

http://bayimg.com/MAkLgAaDD The Reckoning (2003) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258816/ The Reckoning is a 2003 murder-mystery film starring Willem Dafoe and Paul Bettany. The film, which is set during the medieval period in England, was directed by Paul McGuigan. Its screenplay was written by Mark Mills and based on the 1995 novel, Morality Play by Barry Unsworth. Filming was done on location in Spain, Wales and England. The film alludes to the evolution of the theatre arts from what was strictly Biblical morality plays in the period to dramas based on real or non-Biblical fictional subjects. Paul Bettany ... Nicholas Marián Aguilera ... Nicholas' Lover Trevor Steedman ... Jealous Husband Simon McBurney ... Stephen Tom Hardy ... Straw Brian Cox ... Tobias Willem Dafoe ... Martin Gina McKee ... Sarah Stuart Wells ... Springer (as George Wells) Vincent Cassel ... Lord De Guise Elvira Mínguez ... Martha Richard Durden ... Town Justice Ewen Bremner ... Simon Damian Mark Benton ... Sheriff Hamish McColl ... Innkeeper The film was shot on location in a variety of locations including Almería and Rodalquilar in Andalucía, Spain. Castle interiors were completed at Hedingham Castle, in Essex, England. With additional filming for the travelling sequences shot in mid Wales. The Reckoning is a hypnotizing, thought provoking, and powerful sacred quest of redemption. Set amongst the backdrop of merry old England in the heart of the Middle Ages, Nicholas (Paul Bettany) is a self exiled priest who, upon his escape from divine servitude, crosses paths with a group of traveling actors led by troupe leader Martin (Willem Dafoe). Nicholas joins the company of players and, after the death of Martin’s father, he follows them to a nearby village where the actors put on stage renditions of biblical stories. When first arriving at the village, the troupe finds themselves in the midst of a public trial of a deaf-mute girl (Elvira Mìnguez) who is accused and sentenced to death for the murder of a local boy. Soon after, their play opens and barely anyone shows. To incite public interest, Martin fashions the idea to make a play about the deaf-mute girl's story. Throughout their research of the case, Martin and Nicholas find out that justice had not really been served and the truth was hiding somewhere underneath the surface. They go on to perform the play in front of a sell out crowd, but by playing it safe and not delving any further than what is basically the one sided story given by the village’s law, they are booed off the stage and cast out of the area. Further investigation by the troupe, after their banishment, begins to unravel the true happenings of the fate of the local boy. Paul Bettany has yet to truly have a role to shine in. He’s provided great support to Russell Crowe in both A Beautiful Mind and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, but has not come center stage until now. This film is all Bettany. If we weren’t entranced by his character's sins in the film’s opening, the rest of the movie would be all fodder. Regardless of other impressive talent like Dafoe and Brian Cox, it is in Bettany's Nicholas we follow this journey. We follow his tempestuous path to redemption, from his falling from grace to his striving for salvation. Bettany carries this film and its ensemble cast on his shoulders, like Atlas holding the globe. It’s too bad his next starring role is in next month’s chick flick Wimbledon, this film shows how much unleashed potential he really has. Scottish director Paul McGuigan mixes great storytelling, a stellar cast, exquisite cinematography, and flawless production design into a little film that is better than its theatrical release’s competition. This is McGuigan’s third film, and it makes even more poignant the phrase “third time's a charm”. Like Bettany, his next opus bowing in a few weeks, Wicker Park, still looks a bit on the iffy side to me, but as long as he keeps growing as a filmmaker and Bettany continues to grow as an actor, there is nothing but great things for these two in the years ahead. The medieval world of the film has been convincingly re-created (it was photographed in Spain), and the ambience and plot suggest connections with three other medieval mystery films: "The Name of the Rose," about a murder at a monastery, "The Return of Martin Guerre," about a man who may be Martin or may have murdered him, and Bergman's "The Virgin Spring," about a girl murdered by itinerant farm workers. In those years superstition and ignorance were the key elements in any criminal investigation. "The Reckoning" has just a little too much of the whodunit and the thriller and not enough of the temper of its clash between cultures, but it works, maybe because the simplicity of the underlying plot is masked by the oddness of the characters. Dafoe is invaluable in an enterprise like this, always seeming to speak from hard experience, giving mercy because he has needed it. Bettany plays the priest as a man left rudderless by his loss of status, and Cox plays the kind of malcontent who, on a modern movie location, would be angry about the quality of the catering. Given the vast scale of a quasi-medieval epic like "The Lord of the Rings," it is refreshing to enter the rude poverty of the real Middle Ages, where both the peasant and his lord lived with death and disease all around, and trusted sorcery and superstition to see them through.

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 neon (2011-09-28)

Do you have willem defoe in The Loveless...also any other james dean stuff will be great...thanks :)