Bless the Child



Starring: Christina Ricci, Ian Holm, Rufus Sewell, Kim Bassinger, Jimmy Smits

Directed by: Chuck Russell

Produced by: Paramount Pictures

Distributed by: Paramount, Icon

Genre: horror

Xibo's grade:

B+

Average grade:

--

 


B+ B+ B+
Review by Xibo Date seen: August 11, 2000
Viewing Location: Newport Grade: B+
Summary: Pretty decent satan-cult flick, if a bit overdone.
The basic premise of this movie, a girl being born under a holy star and possibly being the next Jesus, has been done-- several times. One wonders why yet another rendition is needed. But this movie has several good factors going for it:

  • Kim Bassinger plays a decent role as the aunt/mother-figure. Bassinger is a talented actress and obviously needs better roles than this.
  • Rufus Sewell, who was completely awesome in film noir flick "Dark City", plays an excellent bad guy here. As the cult's leader, he uses his stage presence to give airs of domination. I love watching him work.
  • Chuck Russell's direction. He took a very overdone theme (satanic cultists trying to stop the second coming) and did a decent job with it. The plot moved from one scene to the next, with lots of twists and turns, so it was never boring. In the end though, the script won out and the whole thing got a bit absurd.
  • Christina Ricci's supporting role. She's a talented actress and a bit typecast, so it's hard for her to find good work. Hopefully we'll see more from her in the future.

Jimmy Smits was sharing top billing with Kim Bassinger, but his role was truly peripherial. He contributed nothing to the picture. His character was slightly interesting (ex-seminary student turned cop) but he was basically just re-hashing his NYPD Blue role as detective.

In the end I was left wondering why the satanists were so easy to take down. Obviously the characters were intelligent enough to have better defenses, but I guess at that point the director realized the movie was failing and decided to quickly wrap things up.

Overall, I liked it pretty well. I love gothic movies in New York City. 

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