Priest

Plot synopsis:
A centuries long war between humans and vampires has devastated the planet's surface and led to a theocracy under an organization called The Church. They constructed giant walled cities to protect mankind and developed a group of elite warriors, the Priests, to turn the tide against the vampires. The majority of the vampires were killed, while the remainder were placed in reservations. With the war over, the Clergy disbanded the Priests. Outside the walled cities, some humans seek out a living, free from the totalitarian control of the Church.
Priest (Paul Bettany) is approached by Hicks (Cam Gigandet), the sheriff of Augustine, a free town. Priest learns that his brother and his wife, Shannon - Priest's girlfriend before he entered the priesthood - were mortally wounded in a vampire attack, and Priest's niece, Lucy (Lily Collins), was kidnapped. Hicks asks for Priest's help in rescuing Lucy. Priest asks the Clergy to reinstate his authority, but Church leader Monsignor Orelas (Christopher Plummer) does not believe the vampire story and refuses. Priest defiantly leaves the city and Orelas sends three Priests and a Priestess to bring him back.
Priest and Hicks arrive at Nightshade Reservation where humans called Familiars, people infected with a pathogen that makes them subservient to the vampires, live alongside a number of the surviving vampires. After a fierce battle, the pair discovers that most of the vampires have taken shelter in Sola Mira, a vampire hive where Priest lost several of his comrades during a major battle. Priestess joins them at Sola Mira, revealing a bond with Priest. The trio destroys a Hive Guardian vampire, then discover that the vampires have bred a new army and dug a tunnel out of the mountain towards a town called Jericho. The other three Priests have arrived at Jericho just as night falls and an armored train arrives, unleashing hundreds of vampires upon the population. The vampires are led by a powerful and mysterious human wearing a black hat. When the three Priests reject Black Hat's offer to join him, he kills them all.
The next morning, Priest, Priestess and Hicks arrive in Jericho and discover the town empty and the three dead Priests crucified. Priest and Priestess share an intimate moment where she makes her move, hoping that now that Shannon has died, he would no longer feel bound to her. Priest, who is clearly not over Shannon, gently refuses. Priest realizes that the vampires have been using the trains to travel by day and attack the free towns by night, with the walled cities at the end of the train line. Hicks believes an attack on the cities would be unwise because of the sun, but Priest reveals that factories, producing massive clouds of smoke and ash, have permanently deprived the city of sunlight, so the vampire attack would be a slaughter.
Hicks threatens Priest, claiming he will shoot him unless he promises to let Lucy live whether she's been infected or not. (Priest had earlier revealed to Hicks, who is in love with Lucy, that if they discovered Lucy had been infected as a Familiar, he'd kill her.) Hicks doesn't understand why Priest, who is basically a stranger to Lucy, cares so much about her. Priestess reveals that Lucy is actually Priest's daughter, and that his brother, Owen stepped in as a husband and a father when Priest was taken by The Church.
While Priestess rushes ahead to plant a bomb on the railroad tracks, Priest and Hicks board the train to rescue Lucy. Battling vampires and Familiars, the two are finally overpowered by Black Hat just as they find Lucy. Black Hat is revealed as one of the Priests who was defeated in the final attack on Sola Mira and a close friend of Priest. After being captured, the vampire Queen gave him her blood, turning him into the first Vampire-Human hybrid who can survive the sun. As Priest fights Black Hat, Lucy discovers the truth about her parentage. Priestess battles several Familiars, finally placing the explosives on her motor bike and crashing it into the train engine. The explosion and subsequent derailment kills the vampires and engulfs Black Hat in fire, while Hicks, Priest, Priestess, and Lucy are able to escape.
Priest returns to the city and confronts Monsignor Orelas during Mass, telling him of the burnt train containing the vampires' bodies, but not the queen's. He proves this by throwing a vampire head onto the floor and shocking everyone in the room. Orelas still refuses to believe him, declaring that the war is over, while Priest says that is just beginning. Outside the city Priest meets Priestess and she reveals that the other Priests have been notified and will meet them at a rendezvous point. Priest sets off into the sunset.

Tags: brainwashing, romantic, queer, entertaining, flashback

Review:
'Priest' is a complex film, dealing with hard issues of incest and homo-sexuality, but first with the conflict between the priest mission as a moral leader and the Procustian laws of the Catholic church he needs to obeye by.
Father Greg Pilkinton (Linus Roache) is a young, dedicated, idealistic and yet conservative (comparing to his colleague, Father Matthew Thomas, played by Tom Wilkinson) priest who has recently arrived in his new parish.
Later on, a school girl, Lisa (Christine Tremarco) confesses to him that her father has been sexually abusing her, Father Greg faces his inner struggle on whether to reveal the truth to the authority, or remain silent in order not to break his vow.Confused and frustrated, Father Greg goes to a pub and meets Graham (Robert Carlyle) and later they have sex.
A casual pick up turns into an affair which in turn becomes a personal and professional disaster as an equally intolerant society pushes him towards wrongful arrest and a verdict of "guilty." Father Greg becomes the object of derision and hatred by the bigoted, close minded community, itself a reflection of all the young priest exhibited in but a show of intolerance and sanctimoniousness.The real heart of this picture occurs in the confessional when a desperate young girl tells of ongoing sexual abuse at the hands of her father.
Eventually, this information becomes a test of faith for Father Greg as he questions his spirituality, the laws of the church and God himself.During all of this the older priest, Father Matthew, preaches of "the trappings of power" that the Church has saddled itself with - and how the trappings have gotten in the way of the message of God, of love, of tolerance, of patience and compassion.
As might be expected, the Church's higher ups have little patience for this sort of talk - and the congregation itself shuns Father Greg turning mass into an explosive show of blind eyed fanaticism.As Father Greg, Linus Roche gives a searing, searching performance as the young tormented priest.
Film is an emotion charged look at the Catholic Church's problems and cover-ups concerning a closeted guilt ridden gay priest's sexual desires, and a little girl being molested by her disgusting father who relates in the confessional not for penance, but to tell the priest it is his right and not to interfere.
"Priest" is VERY MUCH that movie.The old priest's clerical replacement comes in the form of Father Greg (Linus Roache, in a star-making role), a young, fair-haired, boyishly handsome visionary who, with typically youthful verve, strives to bring the Catholic Church directly to the people (well, to the Catholics, anyway), and receives his actions with decidedly mixed feelings.
In one particularly chilling confessional scene, a male member of the parish practically flaunts his sexual desires while "justifying" his incestuous advances toward his teenage daughter."Priest" is an important, ambitious project and yields emotional power in its depiction of moral adversity.
The Catholic's Church's unyielding, unprogressive, medieval doctrines are brought to task here, never more pointedly than in the scene where Father Greg, agonizing over whether to prevent the continued sexual abuse of the young girl and report the father to authorities, or respect the confidentiality of the confessional and remain silent, reluctantly chooses the latter.While I deem this movie to be a stronger platform for social tolerance, `Priest' still drums home beautifully the message that organized religion is still used as a tool to govern instead of instill moral standards, particularly in other countries, and as a persecutive weapon against certain sectors of society that do not conform to those rigid standards.
As a consequence, the Church has provided a comforting harbor and hazardous safety zone for certain "acceptable" bigotries.We need more brave, topical films like "Priest" to confront such important social issues and display them front-and-center..
I just re-watched Priest after 12 years, and I think it is even more powerful and relevant now it was then, given the scandals in the Catholic Church and the rise of religious militancy and fundamentalism in the world.While occasionally teetering on the brink of preachiness and soap opera, Priest is saved by tight direction and very fine acting.
As a writer, I was blown away the first time I saw this movie because the script is so excellent: every character in the film, from the lead priest to the maid, seems to have something at stake in the plot, be it religious morals, sexual happiness, love, personal fulfillment, honesty, duty or physical safety.
After the script, another reason to love PRIEST is the performances: it is one of those few movies where absolutely everyone is excellent, from Roache and Wilkinson, down to bit players like the irate Housekeeper at the priest retreat and the young reporter who tries to corner Roache after his hearing.
A young handsome Catholic priest Father Greg (Linus Roache) starts at a new parish in London.
Priest, by Antonia Bird, is very beautiful and also provocative film about faith, church, forgiveness and tolerance, which all have as many shapes as there are human beings.
The film tells the story of a priest who arrives to new town and soon he notices some things he don't consider too acceptable, and learns also that incredible and selfish evil lives inside every human being, including himself.The film is a powerful study about religion and many ways to interpret and obey its orders.
Forgiveness and love are the most important things and the film ends in extremely beautiful scene at the church, as at least one little person forgives the priest for his "crimes" and sees into the heart and soul of the priest.
Priests are not often the heroes of movies:some famous predecessors were Robert Bresson's "journal d'un curé de campagne" (1945),Luis Bunuel's "Nazarin" (1958) and Jean-Pierre Melville 's "Leon Morin prêtre" (1961).But none of these directors went as far as Antonia Bird .Their movies were perhaps esthetically better,but nothing shocking for people who were brought up religiously ,nothing like the pictures of this priest lying on a bed with his lover.One will add that Bunuel's movie was looked upon as "very Christian" by the Spanish censorship when it was exactly the contrary.But it's difficult to consider Bird's work a fable:it's a realistic story,where sex occupies the center of the plot:sex between the other priest and the housekeeper,sex between the father and his daughter,sex between Rochman and Carlyle .Bird's style,though depicting the poor sides of Liverpool is very different from Kenneth Loach's .Her pictures are polished up ,like the one in confessional where the incest father is speaking through the grille ,or the two lovers on the beach.Bird's movie is very interesting because it broaches the problem of celibacy in the catholic religion (protestant priests are allowed to marry aren't they),and,as the hero remarks "Jesus did not ask for chastity did he?"A hero who is not always very smart:"be discreet" he tells to his colleague who sleeps with the housekeeper,but he kisses his lover in a car in broad daylight.The final battle in the church is particularly interesting,because it's a battle of words,repeating quotations from the Bible,and there are so many ways of interpreting its meanings .It seems that the priest uses the New testament ( judge not lest...,Mary Magdelene, forgive not seven times but seventy)whereas his enemy draws from the old one (a man sleeping with a man is an abomination).The seal of the confessional subject is not that much new however:even in 1953,Hitchcock made "I confess" in which Montgomery Clift was confronted to the same problem.Best line;the older priest ,telling a shocked congregation that God is probably too busy to care about what men do with their d......
The striking opening sequence of 'Priest' depicts an enraged elderly cleric, having learned he is being pushed into retirement, utilizing a large crucifix as a battering ram and raiding the offices of the bishop; the climax of the film is one of the most powerful, emotionally shattering scenes I have ever seen, imbued with forgiveness and redemption and humanity at its shining, courageous best, in the face of humanity at its self-righteous worst.
Father Greg Pilkington (portrayed with astonishing clarity and mesmerizing, gut-wrenching passion by Linus Roache) is a young, idealistic priest who is more than a little put-off by his unorthodox partner, Father Matthew Thomas (a wonderful performance by the great Tom Wilkinson), who sings karaoke at the neighborhood pub and sleeps with the housekeeper.
I liked the ending the best - the only one in the Church capable of forgiving and accepting the gay priest, was the young girl who had been abused by her father and who had confided in the priest.
The film is NOT ABOUT being a gay priest.It speaks to any thinking person who has ever questioned their faith only to find that there are no answers and that faith is all there is.Father Greg (Linus Roche) is gay and conflicted.
The main character tries to keep morally and spiritually centered - despite handicaps - and in my opinion that's worth tuning in for.This film is NOT an indictment of the Catholic church or ABOUT a homosexual Priest.
And his love interest, Graham, seems remarkably unaware of the potential for problems that a priest might face if discovered to be having a gay affair.Given the church's history of burying such problems rather than dealing with them, the reactions of the bishop may or may not have been realistic, although an amazing number of people seem to be borderline drama queens in this film, not least Father Greg who turns the focus of everyone's problems onto himself even before he manages to hit the headlines.Probably the most convincing acting came from the angry parishioners and other priests whose cranky approach to Christianity was underscored by their behavior.I would say that the screenplay didn't play favorites.
THis movie just points out that the writers think that celibacy is bad and that the Church is out of date and should let all those poor priests just have partners and everything would be great.
Aiming not so much to question the values of the church, it is a humorous and uncompromised journey, examining the title character's ideals and his approach to realistically facing the problem of conflicting standards, modern versus tradition.The talented British cast are more than merely believable in their roles, to my surprise even after seeing them in different memorable contexts, for example, "Wings of the Dove" and "The Full Monty".While the film excels in story-telling and to convey emotional issues, it does not necessarily offer a satisfactory solution to the questions it raised.
Love, sex, controversy, pain, anger, injustice and all the natural and unnatural twists and turns of life affect the clergy in ways that we who have not taken the vows cannot possibly understand.PRIEST revolves around the troubled life journey of Father Greg, whose major struggle is one of sexual orientation.
It is here that Fathers Greg and Matthew lay out the simple arguments of pro and con that support the premise of this thought-provoking and intelligent film.Aside from a hokey scene where Greg sheds his Roman collar, opening his "closet" to reveal a hidden black leather jacket (oddly reminiscent of Barbara Gordon's Batgirl costume behind a revolving bookcase), PRIEST doesn't make a false step, even in it's sensual and delicately constructed sex scenes.At times, PRIEST almost threatens to try to cover too much territory - a close-up of a girl alter-server is blessedly as far as female director Antonia Bird goes with the quandary of the role of women in clerical life.
[...]Anyhow, the movie uses that dramatic conflict and mixes it with another story-line of a sexually abused little girl who confess to priest about it while asking him to keep it a secret.Soon enough everything goes for a big emotional climax.
And for a film about a gay catholic priest who has deep emotional problems with choosing to live by his religion or come out as a gay priest, things are made too easy with the girl who tells him inside a confessional that she is sexually abused by her father.
The story of an individual torn apart by conflicting beliefs and forces is indeed fascinating and "Priest" deals with this in a powerful and convincing fashion.The success of the movie lies largely in the truly stunning performance of Linus Roache.
one of the best movies to openly challenge the hypocrisy of the world, especially that of the Catholic church.A very human story, cleverly depicts Father Greg's torment when he is faced with a dilemma.
Our hero, the Priest, is basically evil.He breaks his vow of celibacy numerous time, he has homo-sexual relations (I don't care what you think on this, a priest is supposed to believe it is wrong) and causes the girl more harm than good by being indecisive.This movie is divisive  not creative.
In fact the video packaging fails to mention that Fr. Greg (Linus Roache) is gay, and that his gayness consumes this Catholic priest as much as the other, awful issue his oath of the confessional won't let him reveal, tearing him apart.Some saw this as an anti-Catholic film, but the script clearly distinguishes between disparaging the Catholic religion and certain hypocritical Catholics who seem incapable of "hating the sin but loving the sinner."  As the movie points out, we are all sinners, some more than others, but confession brings remission though not always in this lifetime.
Linus Roache plays a young British priest conflicted over his vocation, by the Catholic rules governing him, and by his sexual orientation (he picks up a lad for sex in a gay pub, and we are to assume this isn't his first time at the rodeo).
Antonia Bird's Priest revolves around Father Greg Pilkington (Linus Roache), who is just assigned to St. Mary's Church in Liverpool.
It's a frightening scene, and although Roache doesn't handle the crying and the more dramatic elements with immense conviction, it's adequate enough, especially when edited together ostensibly to create an "act of God" circumstance in response to Father Greg's persistent pleading.Priest is more an impressionistic soap-opera regarding the church than it is a drama.
Father Greg Pilkington (Linus Roache) is torn between his call as a conservative Catholic priest and his secret life as a homosexual with a gay lover, frowned upon by the Church.I did not know what I was getting into watching this, but found that it was above and beyond anything I could have expected.
He is also struggling with his own homosexual feelings towards Graham (Robert Carlyle).This movie has a lot of things going on and it's trying to make a point about sex and the church.
Because of the traditional Catholic doctrine of the "seal of the confessional", he is unable to notify the authorities, even though he is sorely tempted to do so."Priest" was one of the most controversial British films of the 1990s because of the way in which it dealt with the issues of homosexuality, incest, child abuse and religious celibacy.
Both (although they are tempted to leave the priesthood) remain loyal to the Church as an institution, believing that it is through the Church that they can best serve God. That doesn't seem to me to be either anti-Christian or anti-Catholic.At times it appears as though the scriptwriter Jimmy McGovern is arguing against traditionalist religion and in favour of a more inclusive Catholicism which accepts married priests, takes a more liberal line on homosexuality and focuses more on social issues than questions of sexual morality.
It is also a powerful psychological drama, with excellent performances from the two leading actors, Linus Roache and Tom Wilkinson, and an important contribution to the distinguished British tradition of social-realist film-making.
Father Matthew (Tom Wilkinson) was also a wonderful character, showing that despite his religious role, he was rather open-minded, defending Father Greg multiple times against bishops of the Church and even homophobic members of the local parish.One of the biggest subplots was with the girl Lisa, who confessed to Father Greg that she was being molested by her father.
Father Greg wanted to tell her mother, but he knew he couldn't break the Seal of the Confessional, an important sacrament in the Catholic Church.
The storyline was powerful, and I'd say it was just as important a plot point as being gay in the Catholic Church."Priest" is one of the best movies I've seen about being gay and religious, and it showcased each identity with compassion.
However, the movie was pretty critical against the Catholic Church, illustrating that their ideas are outdated such as Father Greg not being able to reveal Lisa's secret and help her.
Sin is awful and bad, unless of course, it is the priest doing it and then, hey it is all right after all.There are some impressive performances at play during Priest, not least Father Greg Pilkington – Linus Roach and his love interest, Graham played by Robert Carlyle.
There is absolutely nothing to complain about the main actors - Linus Roache and, more or less, all the cast from "The Full Monty" (brilliant: Tom Wilkinson) but I didn't like the way the story in the film develops and the worst thing in it is the end, at least in my opinion.
The second scene that I thought was particularly powerful was when the gay priest was praying and telling Jesus that he had it so easy because He knew everything and basically yelling at God for being Godif that makes any senseGod was answering his prayer by exposing the girl's father as a molester.
Roache gives a marvellous performance as the religious man struggling with the pressures of his beliefs, Wilkinson gets his moments as his fellow priest friend, and Carlyle is also effective as the gay lover, this is a thought provoking story filled with compassion, harrowing material and a real sense of how beliefs overpower people, a great British drama.
In Catholic church, homosexuality is a really controversial topic and in Priest, the main character turned out to be a man who is in love with another man.