The Reaping (2007)

I can’t think of any actress who has had as strange of a career as that of Hilary Swank. The first that I ever heard of her was way back in 1992 when she was giving Mr. Miyagi female problems in the fourth installment of the Karate Kid movies. It was from that appearance that I surmised the following facts regarding Hilary. The first thing I noticed was that she was infinitely more attractive than Ralph Macchio which automatically made The Next Karate Kid ten times more entertaining then either Karate Kid II or III. I certainly wouldn’t have minded having her come down to my Dojo for a few lessons on the mat. Yes, I know she was a high school teenager in the movie but she was twenty two in real life so that makes it okay.

Then there was the fact that Ms. Swank actually seemed as if she might have some decent acting talent buried in there somewhere in between the leg kicks and knuckle punching.

I also made this prediction about Ms. Swank at the time:

She may very well be a good actress but doing the fourth film of the Karate Kid movies will sink your career quicker than a vat of quicksand. “We won’t be hearing from Ms. Swank again,” I predicted. So now you know that some of my predictions pretty much suck.

So after having cut her teeth by proving that she could play Ralph Macchio, Hilary went on to win a very much deserved Best Actress Oscar playing the transgender Brandon Teena in Boys Don’t Cry. Five years later she picked up another acting award when she starred in Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby. But here is one prediction I can make with one hundred per cent certainty. Ms. Swank will not be carrying any Oscar home for The Reaping, a film that somehow could only manage a seven percent approval ranking at Rotten Tomatoes. I knew that Hilary had found time to star in a few turkeys in between trips

down the red carpet, but you would have thought she could have at least eked out a double digit score from the critics. Even that great cinematic achievement From Justin to Kelly managed a nine percent tomato rating which was two points higher than what this film received. So the question remains is whether or not The Reaping is really that bad, or were the critics just lying in wait for Ms. Swank with their scythes so they could knock her down a peg or two after taking home Oscar number II?

Hilary Swank plays scientific investigator Katharine Winter whose job it is to debunk religious myths with logical scientific explanations. Think of her as the person who will put that piece oftoast with the Virgin Mary outlined on it under a microscope and find out that it is really caused by some old green mold that was on the bread before you toasted it. Yeah, I know you were hoping to make a killing on Ebay but that’s the way it goes sometimes.

We find out that what she does because at the beginning of the film she is investigating some of these strange religious phenomenon, although we don’t know for sure exactly why she is there until a few minutes later she is shown lecturing a college class about her findings and then bragging about how she is 48 for 48 in proving the natural causes for these so called spiritual events. Unbeknownst to Katherine at the time though is that a friend of hers, Father Costigan (Stephen Rea) has these old pictures of her and it seems that Katherine’s photogenic Oscar winning face has an odd habit of bursting into flames and leaving a strange symbol on each of the pictures.. Shortly thereafter Katharine is asked by Doug (David Morrissey) to come on down to Haven, Louisiana with her assistant Ben (Idris Elba) because it seems that ever since some young boy has been murdered, the river has turned into blood.

The town people want to blame it on a little girl by the name of Loren McConnell (AnnaSophia Robb), so it is up to Katharine and Ben to find out if it really is blood in the river or if there’s a Sherwin Williams factory nearby. And they have to do it before poor Loren gets strung up by her Buster Browns if you know what I mean.

It doesn’t take long before things get worse. Dead Frogs come plopping out of the river. Dead meat suddenly becomes covered with flies and maggot. Very much alive meat in the form of cows starts keeling over. It soon becomes apparent that the town may be in the midst of the ten biblical plagues of Egypt, so a simple google search will tell you what else the film might or might not have in store for you.

And while all of these shenanigans are going down, we get intermittent pieces of Katharine’s back story which is the explanation as to why and how she has made it her life’s mission to disprove biblical hocus pocus. And let’s not forget Doug, as he too seems to have his own story and even Katharine’s assistant Ben has a tale of woe of his own which explains why he is religious even if Kat isn’t. This film is hot to trot for back stories. Even little Loren the girl being blamed for everything has one but I’m not going to tell you any of them. If you really care you will watch the movie.

So is it really some religious phenomenon taking place or is there something else at work? Will Kat find the explanation in time to save poor Loren? Will all of these story lines and loose ends be tied up by the end of the movie? And better yet, will we really give a damn one way or another?

I have to say that for a certain portion of the movie, I was intrigued and entertained. I actually thought that it was more like watching a good detective story unraveling at first, whereas Kat would find out that there was a logical explanation for everything that was taking place. The thing about films like The Reaping, if they keep the hocus pocus stuff creepy enough, and then let the suspense build naturally with a nice simple and understandable explanation to tie it all together then generally you’re on pretty safe footing. Unfortunately, Director Stephen Hopkins and his writers Carey Hayes and Chad Hayes begin to crank it up about half way through and the whole film comes tumbling down like a house of cards. When we begin to get some idea as to what exactly is going on, we find the explanation so goofy and convoluted we wish we had never taken the journey in the first place Take for instance the burning photos of Kat that the priest keeps telling her about over the phone. The one and only reason for the burning photos and the priest being in the movie is so that he can be the one to tell Kat what is going on at the right junction of the plot which pretty much tells us she could have sat in her hotel room for the first two thirds of the film, waited for her cell phone to ring and achieved the same result then having to mess with those damn dead frogs in the first place.

It is close to being the same kind of thing that killed Silent Hill for me. By the time the credits were rolling in that film the ending had become such a convoluted mess that you regretted ever having sat down to watch it. At least in The Reaping you will somewhat understand the ending but by the time you leave Haven, Louisiana, you may be wishing you had exited by the time plague number seven had arrived.

Hilary does a good job though, and actually is probably the main reason you’ll stay interested longer than you would otherwise. And I actually thought she looked kind of sexy traversing around in that swamp. David Morrissey and Idris Elba aren’t bad either, but neither role is anything that would require a great deal of skill. Odd man out though is Stephen Rea. His Father Costigan seems like he should be in another movie altogether. Like maybe in The Omen being speared by a falling cross in the church yard.

AnnaSophia Robb as Loren is creepy and chilling and I am always appreciative when they find a kid actor who doesn’t try and play their role as if they are taking sugar injections.

The thing of it is, despite the seven percent rating at Rotten Tomatoes and despite what you may have heard, the film is not as bad as all of that. In fact, you’ll probably find just enough of it to be entertaining to make it worth a DVD rental (no release date scheduled yet that I can find). And you may even find the last half hour more worth while than I did. But there is one more cardinal sin that the film committed at the end. There is a conversation between two of the characters in the film, that is there for one reason and one reason only and it is something that I absolutely hate when it happens in any movie. It was there for no other reason then to set up a possible sequel. Considering how this movie performed at the box office, we are certainly in no danger of that ever happening. Nonetheless, because they committed what I consider to be one of the ten grievous plagues of moviemaking with that sequel set-up ending, I have no choice but to do as I always do in these cases which is to lower the grade. And in the case of The Reaping that would be turning a C+ into a D+. But I can’t change water into wine so don’t ask.