spacedogg1979

George Clooney's (way overboard) directorial debut doesn't cut the mustard. This film is over stylized, overwrought and overzealous, purporting to be much more grand than it had any chance of being.

The subject of the film is preposterous: simultaneously self-absorbed/self-abasing two-bit television producer, Chuck Barris, does double duty as a CIA assassin. Equally as asinine as the storyline is Sam Rockwell's unredeemable portrayal of this sex-crazed megalomaniac. There is no depth to Rockwell's Barris: he remains smug and brazenly vulgar throughout the film-- the multiple close ups of his bare rear atone for nothing.

Julia Robert's credibility takes a nose dive in this film as well, with her portrayal of Barris' undercover counter-part slash part-time lover slash rival. Ms. Roberts' uninspired performance is nearly as gut-wrenching as Drew Barrymore's portrayal of Barris' vapid, co-dependent victim of a girlfriend. Both women serve no purpose other than to underscore the misogynistic underpinnings of the film.

All in all, Clooney's handling of a potentially sassy and brilliant story leaves much to be desired. What could have been a campy and ironic joy ride proved to be nothing more than a dull and irritating psycho-drama.

`El Crimen' was not a bad film, although it was hardly worthy of accolades. While the acting was passable, the story did not move along in a provocative enough manner to thoroughly captivate its audience-- in simple terms, the movie was somewhat slow.

What is interesting to notice is the reaction that the public-- especially the Catholic public-- has had to this film. As a Catholic, it saddens me to see the amazing amount of rage focused around the lust of the film's central character, Padre Amaro. The film, on a superficial level, was rebellion against stale relics of Catholic tradition-- such as requisite chastity for clergy and the deification of inanimate objects-- that may well spell the end of the faith if they are not shed. It is on these superficial levels that Padre Amaro is decried as a criminal of the faith by the viewing public, but lust is not this priest's true crime.

Central to the film's controversy is the corruption that propels the church. The truest crime of the film is the web of cover-ups and lies that the church creates in order to propagate its cause. The church is held deep in the pockets of the drug cartel and in order to maintain their stability, the majority of the church leadership, from the bishop down to the sacristans,

are quite comfortable with, at worst, lying and falsifying evidence or, at best, looking the other way. The crime of Padre Amaro is not so much that he acted upon his human impulses as that he accepts the corruption of the church by participating in its lies and creating lies of his own.

Unfortunately, this film's only exposé is not the corruption of the church, which has become more and more evident in recent times, but the faithful church body's willingness to pretend that none of this goes on. One of the most terrifyingly ironic cries of foul against this film, as evidenced in many of these reviews, is, `Priests would never act that way!' How can one, in today's climate, make such assertions? While this film should, in an ideal world, be objectionable, the current outcry by supposedly devout Catholics represents a denial of epidemic proportions.

If one would set aside one's group think for two hours while watching this film, one might gain a perspective of the church that our priests do not offer in their Sunday morning Masses. This film may not represent what we would like our church to be, but it does represent what our church is. If we continue to pretend that the current state of affairs of our faith is acceptable, then el crimen de Padre Amaro will also be our crime: complacence.