The Confessor (2004) User Reviews

"The Confessor" AKA "The Good Shepherd" is a well-acted drama.

[tarbosh22000 · 6/10 · 12 May 2010]

"The Confessor" AKA "The Good Shepherd" is a well-acted drama.

The plot: Father Daniel Clemens (Slater) has uncovered a murder mystery involving other priests and corruption in his church. Can he uncover the truth?

Christian Slater puts in a good performance as usual. Parker also holds her own. The mystery is a little uneven and the ending is weak, but overall the movie is worth seeing. It goes in too many directions. The director made another movie called "Gone Dark" which is a hidden gem.

In the end: "The Confessor" is decent little mystery if you don't take it too seriously.

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Entertaining Film

[whpratt1 · 6/10 · 29 June 2008]

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.

A lazy-afternoon-nothing-else-to-watch type of film

[holderdj · 6/10 · 21 December 2005]

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.

Some more research would have been nice ..

[imdb-11745 · 5/10 · 5 January 2006]

The story in itself was quite interesting, but I ran into something that happens too often. So many times when I know more than average about the situation/background of the story of a movie, I see loads of mistakes. Same here. I'm a catholic and found the mistakes regarding a.o. the Mass annoying. It is possible to say 'let us pray' directly after sermon (in week Masses), but then the priest won't continue to the creed, as he did in the movie (and as happens on Sundays and holidays). And the creed is said together, not only by the priest. Later on, things got worse. The priest entered the church, kneeled, and kissed the altar (all of this is indeed what happens in the beginning of Mass) and then ... he stepped away from the altar (huh?) and continued with 'let us pray' and the our father! LOL, he just skipped 2/3rd of the Mass ;-) And also the our father is prayed aloud by the entire congregation. There was much more to comment on, but 'nuf said about this topic: they should have done their research more thoroughly. Asking some catholics, going to Mass a few times themselves, or just looking in Wikipedia would have done the trick.

It's now called, 'The Confessor' on DVD

[RitchCS · 1/10 · 24 March 2006]

Was the cast and crew on drugs before they started filming this? There was a hole in the plot...so big...nothing could have filled it up. From the first scene when the co-star is late for dinner, was there any doubt where he was and what he had just done? The suspense was over from there. Now, it was going to take another 85 minutes before the mystery was solved. I must confess that the biggest hole in the plot kept me awake for hours, wondering how dumb the screenwriter, the director, Chrisian Slater, Molly Parker, and Stephen Rea could be not to at least explain how our murderer, who was not a lawyer, or a policeman, could go into a locked cell at a jail, kill his second victim, and tie him up from a noose to make it look like suicide??? I kept wondering if I had fallen asleep out of sheer boredom and missed how that happened. If someone can explain it to me, please do...and then, why, for God's sake, did he kill the third victim? Nothing made sense...and yet, someone thought this film was worthy to be an official selection at a film festival. Perhaps it was a comedy and I failed to laugh.

plain filmmaking

[SnoopyStyle · 5/10 · 12 December 2017]

Father Daniel Clemens (Christian Slater) does money solicitation and financial work for the church. He's called in for admiror Father Andrews who was arrested for murder. Andrews can't prove his innocence due to the seal of confession. Clemens has his friend McCaran (Stephen Rea). Cardinal Ledesna (Gordon Pinsent) orders Clemens to handle the case. He struggles to do PR and investigate with the help of reporter Madeline Finney (Molly Parker) with whom he has a past.

This is a Canadian production that pulled in some bigger actors. Stephen Rea is woefully underserved. It's obvious what they're setting him up for but it's a waste of a great actor. As a mystery, it doesn't lay out the clues and twists that well. The filmmaking is plain. It needs a better filmmaker to inject real intensity and brooding mood. Neither writer nor director seem to have gone on to do much else. The church's internal battle needs something bigger and more ominous. The forbidden love between Daniel and Madeline has no heat and is awkward when the heat is turned up. There are elements of a better film but this puts it together like a movie of the week. It's only when Stephen Rea, Slater, and Parker join forces do the movie starts pulling together.

Father forgive me for I have sinned. I've killed three persons since my last confession!

[sol-kay · 6/10 · 11 August 2008]

(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!

Glacial Pace

[roedyg · 4/10 · 3 January 2014]

This movie has a glacial pace. Nothing much happens until the final few minutes of the film for a chase.

The movie is grim, bleak, gritty, dirty, shopworn, colourless. The protagonists are not very appealing. Even Christian Slater plays a sort of car salesman type personality who gradually grows some backbone.

The movie depicts the tedium, hierarchy and obsession with ecclesiastical trivia that makes up a priest's life. The church is corrupt, concerned only with its image.

Everybody in the movie would have been better off without the church. Their fascination with it derailed their lives.

Molly Parker plays the lead female. She reminds me a bit of Olive Oyl with her unnaturally lanky body.

Nancy Beatty plays a sort of Dickensian arch villain. She is about the only colourful character in the film.

Nice try, but not even a good B movie

[PersianPlaya408 · 6/10 · 5 October 2006]

Webb's film concerning a priest (Slater) who believes in a young priest who is accused of murder and claims he is innocent. Molly Parker is good as his former love interest/journalist who helps him out. The film is not amazing, it was actually quite lame in some of its cinematic moments, and felt so B-movie-ish. It was entertaining at times, but just too slow and didn't have the directorial flare that a good B movie should have or the quality of an A-movie. This was nowhere near as good as stuff like The Deal (also starring Slater) or even End Game (starring Cuba GOoding Jr.)... the best in this kind of genre is THe Sentinel which was a very good film despite it having a TV-movie like feel to it. THe Confessor is not the worst film, but its a bit worse than your average film so skip it unless you have a lot of time on your hands. IMDb Rating: 5.0, my rating: 6/10

Overcooked shepherd's pie

[dbdumonteil · 8 September 2008]

For a non-Canadian viewer,the film might seem weird .Their priests do not look like those of their countries,or maybe this is the movie which makes them look like more like yuppies than men of God.It takes a lot of imagination to believe that Christian Slater,Stephen Rea and even poor Von Flores are clergymen.

The movie is actually a whodunit where Slater -who began his career in a monastery (remember "the name of the rose"?)puts on his little act of Hercule Poirot without a mustache .Best performance ,IMHO,comes from Nancy Beatty as the sinister Mrs Gallagher:she particularly shines in the scene where she blames the clergy for their life in luxury.

Like this ...try this.....

Primal fear (Gregory Hoblit) -much better than "shepherd"!-

Lot of Wasted Talent In This Movie......

[wandernn1-81-683274 · 5/10 · 11 June 2020]

Uneventful Opening.

+1 Star For the Priest who upholds the honor and integrity of the confessional despite having uh...how shall i say......'flaws' ?

Okay this movie really didn't have a lot of umph to it at all..

The ending was very quick and really didn't add anything.

-1 Star really for the whole 2nd half of the movie.

5/10 is probably being generous....

Well acted piece that focuses on what is valuable in life

[wsheridan21 · 9/10 · 29 June 2013]

Well acted piece that is driven by dialogue, as opposed to action. The other reviews miss the point. Behind the loosely constructed mystery lie the 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 fact

Christian Slater's understated acting is magnificent. Each line delivered realistically while accentuating the emotion behind each line.

A low budget gem of a movie.

Entertaining Fiction - The Good Shepherd

[arthur_tafero · 6/10 · 21 April 2021]

I am not a big Christian Slater fan, but I think he did a good job with this effort. He plays a hip, high-profile priest, who knows how to wheel and deal like a Wall-Street veteran. He becomes involved in a parish murder mystery that is entertaining, and most importantly, not predictable. There are a few problems with the film, but we overlook them because it is an interesting premise. Plot done before by a few films; most notably "I Confess" with Montgomery Cliff. A woman is murdered and a parish priest is charged with her murder. Slater takes it from there, trying to unravel the mystery. Not bad.

Suspenseful

[fmwongmd · 6/10 · 19 October 2020]

An interesting story of the sanctity of the catholic church confessional and it's rule of absolute secrecy well acted by Christian Slater and Molly Parker.

from Canada

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 20 July 2020]

Christian Slater stars as Father Clemens in "The Confessor," also known as "The Good Shepherd" from 2004. The film also stars Molly Parker, who plays a journalist and ex-girlfriend of Father Clemens.

Daniel Clemens mostly deals with raising funds for the church, so he's not your typical parish priest. When there is a murder of a male prostitute, and a priest named Andrews is accused, Daniel is brought in.

Daniel first has to investigate how Andrews was involved with the victim, and also how Andrews is Andrews involved with him? And how is Andrews involved in a movement called Equality, which the church has forbidden? The film doesn't come out and say it's a gay group which has broken away from the Church yet has mass, etc., but that's what it was.

Andrews ultimately commits suicide, and the Cardinal asks that Clemens release a statement and end his involvement. Clemens doesn't believe it was suicide, and continues investigating, even taking over Andrews' parish duties.

Being Catholic myself, I had a few issues with the film. As much of an SOB as the Cardinal was, I can't believe he would accept that a man who refused to break the seal of confession would turn around and kill himself. The Church is very strong in its feelings about suicide; you cannot be buried on sacred ground. and it's a ticket to a very hot place.

The other thing is small but for some reason bothered me. Father Clemens barreled down the main aisle of the church more than once but never genuflected when he got to the altar.

Slater's approach to the role was a good one - very unpriestly. He was a no-nonsense man who happened to wear a collar, whereas the character of Father Andrews was obviously devout and "priestly." Both exist, and it was good to show that.

The film itself was okay and the mystery decent. The seal of confession has been a story device for years.

Heart pounding and suspenseful

[ekrilova · 8/10 · 7 April 2006]

I'm a fan of Christian Slater and was pleasantly surprised to find this movie to be entertaining, fast-moving, and incredibly suspenseful. At the beginning the plot seems boring and contrived, but the great directing, decent acting, and wonderful cinematography brings this movie into "I was very entertained" level. I really liked the London location with the Winter setting, as well as the other on location settings that made the film more authentic. There were some parts that seemed very unbelievable, but it didn't distract from the quality of the film. Also, would of liked to see more romance between Daniel and the reporter, his former lover/girlfriend. Overall great movie to see on a rainy day or weeknight.

Forgive him Father, for they have sinned

[kosmasp · 6/10 · 1 August 2023]

No pun intended - now we only need to find out who I am talking about (also singular or plural)? What do you reckon and do you even care? This will be quite the interesting question throughout ... just have faith (come on, I had to). Something our main character may or may not have. Christian Slater in one of the better low budget efforts he had to do I reckon (everyone needs money) ... stellar cast too.

The movie actually could have been from the 90s - it has that feeling to it. The script actually might be from that time (and mind set). I would argue that you may know or guess the truth way before it is being revealed ... but does it really matter, if you have a good time along the way? Well you know what I mean by that ... hopefully.

Good story

[wruzek · 8/10 · 19 January 2022]

Pretty good mystery about a favored priest who was a good find-raiser and gets entangled in murder investigations. Good action in the climax with a twist in the ending.