It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

I also enjoyed this movie quite a bit. The script was kind of hammy in places, for example, the scene where the mad priest more or less challenges Fr. Bowdern not to go nuts himself, thus setting up the final conflict. Also, the recurring theme of the WWII memory was overused, I thought. Surely there were other equally interesting obstacles that could have arisen during the exorcisms, to flesh out the character and the drama. But this is Hollywood and the conflict has to be kept simple.In the world of TV movies, I did think it was very good and it definitely piqued my curiosity on the subject of...well, all that scary stuff.My main comment regards Timothy Dalton's consistent difficulty with accents. It seemed like in this role his accent was 50 percent American and 50 percent English. I don't think I would have been so disappointed if his work were not otherwise so elevated. I was impressed and quite pleased that he could make me forget who was playing this role, considering the many iconic characters he has played. Forget, that is, until any moment of high tension, when he lapsed into his native accent and I thought, oh right, here's James Bond with a white collar around his neck. It was a bummer and I wanted more from him.From reading comments about his other movies, he apparently has this problem whenever he adopts an accent. Even in Jane Eyre, his Yorkshire accent was a fleeting thing, I noticed.

The action is set in the "duck and cover" epoch.All fear the "atomic attack".Bill Bowdern teaches at the Faculty of Theology,at "SLU";he was in the war and has his subsequent traumas;he drinks a little,knows much about comics and football.Bowdern defends the faith by fighting racism and gets arrested after punching a policeman.He's not afraid to use some bad language.One day,Bowdern is shown a house of the Alexian Brothers,as a terminus for the misfits.Robbie,eleven years old,is interested mainly in comics and tricks.He learns to be a ventriloquist.One day,at school,objects begin to move themselves by the boy;Robbie becomes morose,violent.He is seen by Rev. Roland Eckhardt ("a man of reason,a man of science,and a man of God",as he defines himself),who takes Robbie at his home and nearly gets killed by the boy.At first,Fr. Bowdern considers Robbie's "abnormal behavior" as "a lot of hearsay","mass hysteria".Then,he is asked to investigate the case.He does some research,finds out about Surin (as a Jesuit professor,he should have known already about Father Surin,at least as much as he knew about Lois Lane,I think).This movie is not frightful,lugubrious,scary,nor creepy,etc.;it seldom tries to be so,and in a naive,clumsy and conventional way.As a matter of fact,it bases upon facts,not upon fantasy.It tries to suggest the sinister,the horrible violence,the horrid,the fearful of the situation,by means of the reactions of those implied (W. Bowdern,Phyllis,etc.).I think it refuses to resort to cheap means in order to scare.The best actors of the show are Timothy Dalton,Shannon Lawson,Czerny and Christopher Plummer.Dalton utters sonorously,plainly,in his affected and theatrical way.W. Bowdern has a rough line:"Too many jackasses have made our decisions".On a TV in this movie we see a bit of a Bp. Sheen show ("higher than Milton Berle").

This Showtime original would just be a moderately budgetedExorcist variation, except - it is based on the original incident whichinspired The Exorist. (For this reason, it is incomprehensible tome why some people here are calling it an `Exorcist ripoff.") I foundit engrossing and entertaining, but I had some problems with thepremise. The film purports to be based on the only possessioncase in modern America, but in fact it changed the original story inmany key ways. The original event took place with a 14-year-oldboy in 1949; the film has an 11-year-old boy in the early 1960s.The date change gives the film an opportunity to talk about VaticanII-type changes taking place in the Catholic church, along withKennedy's election and the civil rights movement. These aremeant to spice up the movie but are mostly irrelevant to the themeand take away from the story. Dramatic horror-type events ensuethat we expect with possession movies, but now I'm left wonderingwhich events were mostly true to the event (in an afterword, one ofthe original attending priests did say a bottle of holy water wentsailing past him), and which ones were post-Exorcist inspired.Thus, while this story was supposed to inspire The Exorcist, wenow wonder who borrowed from whom. All this is saved rather nicely by an intriguing storyline, but inparticular, superb acting by the principals. Timothy Dalton playsFather William Bowden (which was the priest's actual name), thepriest-professor-exorcist: this, far more than James Bond, is histype of role. The boy `Robbie" is extremely well acted by youngJonathan Malen; he plays a more active demon-possessedyoungster than Linda Blair, who was admittedly more spooky, diddecades ago. Other notable performances include ChristopherPlummer as Archbishop Hume and Piper Laurie as Robbie's oldAunt Hanna. So I count myself among those who thought this aworthwhile film, especially knowing that it was at leastsemi-factual and leaves you pondering what possession really is,although I would have preferred the real story without theembellishments. This story reminds us how unfamliar the wholeconcept of possession was to Americans prior to the Exorcist. I'mgiving it an 8.

**** MILD SPOILERS ****This is based on a true story is it ? If that`s the case then why does the opening caption read " Somewhere in France , All saints day , 1944 " Couldn`t the caption have given the exact location ? , or would that lead people to research the integrity of this true story ? Since reading about the truth in " true stories " like PAPILLON and SLEEPERS alarm bells always ring in my head when the words " true " and " story " appear side by side , and if the story is in fact true ask yourself this question : If the events on screen actually happened then why isn`t the case better known . I mean if chairs were running around putting the boot into teachers wouldn`t that be front page news .My second criticism is that I thought this was going to be a bit more light hearted . Of course as soon as the waffen SS turned up and got some bayonet practice in I realised this wasn`t going to be the case , but by then the damage had been done and I knew not to expect any intentional laughs POSSESSED isn`t of much interest except for one aspect - How things used to be . For example smoking wasn`t the social crime it is now , only white people were allowed to be catholics , commies existed and wanted to drop atomic bombs on the USA , young teenage boys could be looked after by priests without any suspicion and teenagers swearing was a certain sign that there were demonic forces at work . Ah the good old days NB : That last line was sarcasm before anyone complains