First, if you are uninterested in religion as a background for a movie you would not enjoy this movie. That is the only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5. With that said, you do not have to be religious to like this movie. I am not religious, but I loved the movie because I enjoy movies if they are well made with a setting of religion in the background. I would classify this movie more of a mystery/conspiricy than horror. The actors play this movie wonderfully, and the settings look like they are on site, not some hollywood studio. The only complaint would be that there is much more traffic/people in Rome in real life. Other than that, is was visually enjoyable.
The story itself has more than one twist and turn. All of which gave you a sense of learning from the start of the moive. It gave you a feel like you were part of the inside of the catholic machine, not a viewer from the outside. This was really well done. I highly reccomend this film. I wish there was a book to this to go even more indepth, or a line of sequals to it. Sorry if this review was a bit general, but that was on purpose to avoid any spoilers for those who have not watched it yet.

I bought this DVD about seven months ago along with AMADEUS. I watched it with my dad alost three time I think it was. The thing is that we liked it very much. A great supernatural thriller with a great cast and performances. To be honest, by the theatrical trailer I've seen on the movies, I thought this was going to be very scary like THE SIXTH SENSE. But even though it didn't freak me out, I enjoyed it. There are very strange dialogues int the movie. There is very little action and horror, but very interesting overall. I suggest you rent it so you could watch a great thriller (not horror) movie.

I enjoy intelligent thrillers, even those that move forward slowly and carefully. For example, I thought "The Game" with Michael Douglas was one of the best of this type of movie. I thought this movie had the potential of being in the same class as "The Game," but I was disappointed.

Part of the problem is the story itself. Alex Bernier (Heath Ledger) is a young priest investigating the apparent suicide of his mentor. It is important to the story to realize that all the principal characters are Catholic. While suicide is a sin in all religions, in the Catholic faith it is perhaps the worst sin of all because it can never be forgiven and prevents that person from being buried in hallowed ground. Alex struggles to believe that his mentor could have committed suicide and sets out to understand why or to prove that he did not commit suicide.

The movie plods along, paced by Alex's thoughts and his interaction with William Eden (Benno Fürmann) and Mara Sinclair (Shannyn Sossamon), along with several other characters, including Peter Weller in one his most unusual roles. The problem with the pacing is that the core issues in this movie are the shock of "sin eating," a pagan practice that dates back hundreds of years, and corruption with the church. Perhaps Catholics might be shocked that sin eating might still exist, but Protestants are going to yawn and say "so what?" Further, with the significant on-going publicity regarding a variety of crimes committed by various priests and the ensuing cover up by the Catholic Church, political corruption within the Church and the possibility that some of the most important members of the church might be other than they seem just isn't all that shocking. This movie should have been made twenty years ago when it might have had more of an effect.

The actors here are not at fault. The acting throughout is quite good. I was very impressed by all the principal characters, especially by Heath Ledger, who did an excellent job. Shannyn Sossaman as his conflicted love interest was dark, brooding, very sensual and sexual and yet also very innocent; outstanding acting. The cinematography was similarly excellent and enhanced the subject quite well. The problem with the movie is that the central conflict will have little effect on many people, and thus they will lose interest and not want to spend the effort to focus on the complex, philosophical story line.

Perhaps Brian Helgeland could have made this movie a different way or with a different script and achieved the effect he was hoping to create. Instead the movie spends far too much time on religious philosophy and on the shock of salvation by means other than religious beliefs, and many members of the audience will have a difficult time to relate.

Brian Helgeland's demonic-goings-on-in-the-Vatican flick "The Order" is what would happen if you were to remake "The Exorcist", turn the FUN knob down to "ZERO", and rip it off.

It looks great, with its twisting Roman alleyways and underground Goth clubs and marbled Vatican antechambers. And while tormented priest-hero Father Alex Bernier (Heath Ledger) may be wrestling with maladies of the mind, body, and soul, he still manages to look like he just sauntered off a GQ cover shoot.

What about the story itself? At the guts of "The Order" is the millennial-old tale of the Sin Eater, a being who takes upon himself the unconfessed sins of the dying, a kind of moral Vampire who is roaming, and killing, in modern day Rome.

Creepy, scary, nasty stuff, right?

Wrong. "The Order" started off smart, creepy and tight, but by the time the final credits rolled I looked worse than Linda Blair in the middle of her spider-climb.

It's a stylish film, certainly: Director of Photography Nicola Pecorini has an eye for visual detail and wields a mean camera. The opening sequence---an elderly priest cycling over an ancient Roman bridge to a dissolute, desolate, demonic rendezvous---is very creepy. "The Order" has all the physical trappings of a classic: terror amid claustrophobic Roman alleyways, a wickedly pagan catacomb underground, corridors of power within the secretive Vatican, a forsaken Italian graveyard. And the actors summoned up give their all: Heath Ledger delivers as the jaded, faded, disillusioned Father Bernier; Benno Furman does what he has to do as Bill Eden; Mark Addy shines as the earthy, bawdy monk Thomas Garrett; Peter Weller has fun as the nefarious Driscoll.

But it's all in vain: all the tricky camera shots and heartfelt acting can't exorcise this monster. "The Order" is one of those weird, affectless flicks where the whole is distinctly less than the sum of the parts. The underworld teeming beneath the vaults of Rome is fascinating, as is the mummery of the hanged man: all of this hints at deeper, darker mysteries to be plumbed, and cinematographer Nicola Pecorini employs the trippy camera-work that made the wigged-out "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" even trippier.

It works here and there: the confrontation in a Roman graveyard with the diabolic is shivery, narcotic, effective. But Pecorini sinks beneath the dead weight of Helgeland's plodding, paint-by-numbers direction and the tedious script. The only thing "The Order" exorcised me of was about 90 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

"The Order" had potential but was served up dead on arrival. Let's bury it.

This film had the possibility to at least entertain but instead it tanked into a boring formula vampire film. I wouldn't even suggest looking at this on a Sunday night when there is nothing else on TV, its that bad. It concerns a priest (Ledger in a miscast role) and his attempt to find out about a "sin eater" played by a German actor who was in a few German hits who can't speak English and he's dull and boring. There is no emotional response in the film, it does nothing at all. ....