Very well executed

Such a frustrating disappointment

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

I really liked the style. It looked really dark and yet really pretty. The only thing that I didn't like was the over-use of cross dissolves and pictures put on top of each other. The lighting looked fantastic. Really good sound nicely balanced. It feels so dark and moody and I loved it! The religious angle was interesting. I thought it worked really well and kept my attention. I didn't like Heath Ledger in the main role; I found him unconvincing which is a shame. Oozing with moody style and Gothic noir. I loved it!

Alex Bernier (Heath Ledger) is a priest and a Carolingians. The Dark Pope or Sin Eater can remove sin from anyone who can then go to heaven. This is heresy to the Roman Catholic Church. Mara Williams (Shannyn Sossamon) escaped from the asylum after shooting Alex during an exorcism. Alex and Mara go to Rome after the death of the Carolingian leader who was killed by the mysterious Sin Eater. Alex has to hunt him down with the help of fellow Carolingian Thomas Garrett (Mark Addy) under the command of Driscoll (Peter Weller).It's a rare thing to say but this movie needs more exposition. It's a mess of a story that somebody needs to explain to the audience. It doesn't work as a supernatural action movie either. Writing/director Brian Helgeland calls in his actors from 'A Knight's Tale' but this is a diametrically opposite movie. There are some silly looking stuff that are suppose to be seriously dark. None of it actually works.

For years this movie was actually my favorite of all time, or at the very least tied with Bill Murray's "The Life Aquatic". This movie IS NOT A HORROR FILM. Get that ridiculous thought out of your heads people. In summation, it's a drama that brings characters to the brink of self-destruction in a Dogmatic Catholic universe (e.g. Vatican City). This is a pseudo-exorcism movie, insofar that there are exorcisms of a sort, but then you are made to think about the repercussions. The CGI is cheesy, but this is circa 2003, probably went in production in 2002. We didn't even have iPods back then, and the smartest phone you could get was a Blackberry, with a Palm Pilot to back it up. There are a couple of lines that seem forced, and I know for a fact that there is a part that I typically fast-forward through to get through the dialogue. All said, this is not an A movie, but definitely more deserving than the D rating most everyone is giving it.The people who rate this film low are the same ones responsible for the fact that we can EXPECT a new Transformers, Avengers, Twilight, etc. film year after year.

"The Sin Eater" is a extraordinary movie which will come to first time viewers as a hit-piece. Most certainly to people who have been raised with a religion, in particular the Catholic. The Sin Eater actually filled out a couple of important blanks for me. The central theme inside the movie is "There is no Salvation outside the Catholic Church of Rome". It means that people, who have been excommunicated, need to find a alternative method to find a eternal resting place for their soul. Enter the Sin Eater, who, with his special powers, delivers salvation at demand for the right price. The Sin Eater is like an extra "God" on earth and as such cannot die and lives an eternal life. There's one little problem though. Although people do get salvation, their sins are _not_ undone, but are actually saved up inside the Sin Eater's body and soul. After having done his job for over 500 years, the number and severity of sins have become to much, even for a Sin Eater. A replacement is due. Enter the last of the Carolinger Priests, who is carefully recruited throughout the movie, in a CIA secret service styled method. The Carolinger Priests inside the Sin Eater are presented as the Jedi of the Catholic priesthood, who do exorcisms and extermination of evil demons like candy cakes between lunch and supper. The old Sin Eater turns out have made a covert deal with a rotten black satanic Cardinal who wants to become the new pope. It is this rotten deal with the Cardinal which becomes one Sin to far for the Sin Eater as his Sin absorbing powers are decreasing rapidly. After the Sin Eater is replaced by the Carolinger Priest, who is not into black occult Satan worship, things turns very bad for the Cardinal as well. Although the above scenario reads like a nut-case novel to people with atheistic or pagan beliefs, the movie addresses the fight between the Christian religion and paganism in a straightforward fashion. E.g. the Satanic Cardinal retrieves all of his knowledge by hanging people and listening to their last words while dying. The Sin Eater contains some interesting scenes. For instance, when the Carolingian Chief Dominic is coming home for the last time, two orphan children are waiting for him at the door. Dominic suddenly knows his last hour on earth is very near. Such signs have been reported before to actually happen in real life.