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People are voting emotionally.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Well acted piece that is driven by dialogue, as opposed to action. The other reviews miss the point. Behind the loosely constructed mystery lie question of what it means to lead a worthwhile life. An urbane priest is confronted with the resolve of another priest to preserve to the death the penitent's relationship with god in the confessional. He is a true believer and soldier of Christ.The urbane priest's deep Christian convictions slowly drag him back to his original priestly calling. This journey is made in a very modern believable way, simply and as a matter of factChristian Slater's understated acting is magnificent. Each line delivered realistically while accentuating the emotion behind each line.A low budget gem of a movie.

(There are Spoilers) When the very beloved and respected Father Andrews,Von Flores, is found by Mrs. Lucy Gallagher (Nancy Betty), his church's landlady, at the scene of young Eric Halloran,James Dallas Smith,murder he instead of asking for a lawyer asks for his fellow priest Father Daniel Clemens, Christian Slater,to talk,or confess,to.Adamantly denying any guilt in Eric's death Father Andrews still won't tell Father Daniel the possible reasons behind Eric's murder! It seems that Father Andrews has a strong suspicion who killed Eric but can't reveal it either to the police or Father Daniel. The killer confessed his about to commit crime to Father Andrews during confession!Believing Father Andrews story Father Daniel goes so far as getting his former girlfriend, before he joined the priesthood, WPPI TV news reporter Madelline Finney, Molly Parker, to interview, in jail, Father Andrew and see what she can get out of him. It turns out, Finney finds out, that Eric was a street hustler who was shaking down his customers for cash and that possibly Father Andrews was one of them! It gets even more interesting when Father Daniel checking Father Andrews mail finds that he was in contact with the gay Catholic group called "Equality"! If this became public to his superiors in the church that would have had Father Andrews defrocked and booted out of his parish St. Dominic.As things start to tighten around the besieged Father Andrew's neck he's suddenly found hanged in the prison shower! This sets off alarms with Father Daniel in that it's very obvious to him that Father Andrews didn't kill himself. A strongly religious man like Father Andrews who was willing to spend the rest of his life behind bars by not breaking the church's voes of confession will never kill himself, a mortal sin, and be damned for all eternity!The movie has Father Daniel as well as reporter Finney uncover a number of clues to just what was the relationship between the two deceased Father Andrews and Eric Halloran. Like Father Daniel suspected someone whom Father Andrews took into his confidence,during confession, murdered Eric in that he was blackmailing him.Despite keeping quite Father Andrews was himself murdered by Eric's killer in fear that he may break under the pressure of police interrogation and spill the beans on him as well! The church wanting to keep the whole murderous affair behind it had Father Daniel kicked out for his bulldog-like insubordination in his trying to find Father Andrews killer. Since he refused to play along with the theory that it all was an affair between two men that, when exposed, went terribly wrong!It's then that the movie starts to backtrack in a number of clues that both the police and Father Daniel overlooked.***SPOILERS*** These clues point directly to Mrs. Gallagher who rented the parish to the church that Father Andrews was the pastor of! It was Mrs. Gallagher's un-Catholic like ways of doing business with the people, mostly teenagers runaways and drug addicts, of the St. Dominic Parish that eventually set the stage not only for the murder of Eric Hallaron and Father Andrews but herself as well!Somewhat predictable ending with the killer suddenly coming out of the shadows as his identity, which was not that much of a surprise, was about to be exposed. One thing you have to say in the killers favor is that he unwittingly prevented Father Daniel from betraying the late Father Andrews in him breaking his voes of confession. Even though at the time Father Andrews had absolutely no idea that he was breaking them!

This film deals with a priest by the name of Daniel Clemens, (Chistian Slater) who is not very well equipped to be a parish priest and is more like a financial business man who can raise funds for the church and deals only with the higher ups in the church. There is a murder and a priest is involved and he is accused of the crime, Daniel is summoned to help this priest out and find out exactly what went on with this murdered man, who was considered a whore. There are many deep dark secrets that are uncovered as Daniel plays the role as a detective. Daniel even gets the help from his former girl friend, Madeline Finney, (Molly Parker) who is a journalist and works at a TV station. Daniel has to stay over night a Madeline's apartment and he accidentally sees her nude taking a shower. There are all kinds of situations concerning dope and plenty of murders and it is not easy to try and figure out just who is doing all these killings.

I agree with much of what has been said about Slater's career as of late and also hope that he returns to making interesting films.This film, however, was not.Spoilers begin: Red herrings were not: Did the priest do it protect his "other" life? Was it the spooky guy at the gay Catholic support group/mass? Was it the abusive head of the children's shelter? Was it the kids from the shelter pulling a "Primal Fear - Ed Norton" twist? It was none of these and it was the most obvious candidate for anyone who has ever watched one of these formulaic thrillers. There are only two "name" actors in the entire film, and one of the two is cast in an unimportant, unassuming role. Hmmmm. Are we supposed to be shocked when it's this actor? In all, the acting was fine, but there was very little character development and almost no tension.Watch it on the weekend, after lunch on a cold day with a cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate. Then promptly forget it.