Thirty minutes into the exorcism thriller “The Rite,” Anthony Hopkins shows up. And for this performance, playing a grizzled, whimsical Welsh exorcist plying his trade in the working-class back alleys of Rome, Sir Tony packed the prosciutto.
This isn’t just ham, served with a side of fava beans and a little Chianti. This is the good stuff, a hint of Hannibal Lecter in white collar, questioning the faith of the young cleric sent to study with him, testing him, hissing at him.
And when Father Lucas shows young Michael (Colin O’Donoghue) his first demonic possession and interrupts the prayer he says over a suffering girl to take a cell-phone call, you can feel the wink the old Oscar winner is sending our way, even as his back is turned.
But if Hopkins is fine Italian ham on the hoof, the movie’s heavy lifting is done by a guinea pig. The little-known Irish actor O’Donoghue is so stunningly uncharismatic that he kills whatever possibilities this picture from the director of the silly-scary-smart “1408” had.
Michael (O’Donoghue) is the son of a mortician whose father (the underutilized Rutger Hauer) taught him the trade by letting him watch the embalming of his own mother. In Michael’s household, you’re either a mortician or a priest. Michael has no faith, but a tragic accident at the end of his seminary training wins him a trip to Rome to study exorcism with Father Xavier (Ciaran Hinds). And Xavier sends He of Little Faith to Father Lucas for a little devil-in-the-flesh proof. Lucas engages the kid in theological debates as he drags him along to deal with a troubled boy and then a pregnant teen certain she is carrying Satan’s seed.