Watch In the Name of the Father For Free

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Bellocchio's variation on "If…", is even more surreal and bleak than Lindsay Anderson's vision of a boy's school as a metaphor for larger society. Here it's a school of spoiled rich out of control kids stashed away by their families (fathers mostly) in a school run by dark hearted priests. It's hard to tell which group is worse, as both tussle for control of the school and each other. Beautifully shot (as are all Bellocchio's films). The film has the Church clearly starting to lose it's corrupted influence, but it's not like we have much to be cheery about in the thought of these rich young thugs running the world either. The surprising thing is how much of this is quite funny. The themes may be depressing, but the individual characters and their actions are often darkly comic (sometimes too much for me, one boy's voice has been dubbed with something that sounds like Mel Blanc created it for a cartoon. Amusing at first, then grating). Some will hate this – it is repetitive and grim and adolescent. But then, the young Bellocchio might argue, so is the world and those who run it.