First of all it turns out Bean isn't even really in the real protagonist role. He is merely the biggest name in the production, but the main character is Osmund played by Eddie Redmayne is fantastic so I don't mind that Bean got all the poster and box art time despite Redmayne playing the protagonist. This is not to say that Bean plays a minor role, but Redmayne is the lead and John Lynch as Wolfstan seems to get the most lines. Bean plays Ulric a knight working for an unnamed bishop somewhere in England sent to hunt down witches and a necromancer in a remote village in a foggy swamp. Bean does an excellent job of being violent and devout at the same time. He brings out the troubled nature in his character using his notable eyes to display fanaticism or insanity while keeping a calm, cool guise. Along the way he picks up Redmayne's character Osmund as a guide. Osmund is a young monk who is straying from his vows due to the love of a beautiful young blond. Along with them is a great group of actors playing the Christian warriors. Of real note are Lynch as Wolfstan and Johnny Harris as the gruff, violent Mold. They travel to a village that may or may not be anti-Christian or Pagan. The village seems to be led by the beautiful Carice van Houten (Valkyrie 2008). She also does a great job, but it is almost jarring as she is the only person in the cast who seems to be both clean and beautiful. The makeup crew got a bit heavy with the mud makeup to say the least.
The rest of the technical aspects were just as solid. The Director Christopher Smith, who most won't know unless they saw the comic horror Severance from 2006, really put together a great movie. It got a bit heavy handed with the narration by Lynch at the end, but he really built a world where a battle between Christianity and a necromancer seems plausible. You feel the superstitions of the age creeping in constantly while Smith also seems to regularly re-root the film firmly back to reality. The writer Dario Poloni deserves some of the credit for that as he wrote this thrilling tale, but I feel the dialogue occasionally was too modern. The Cinematographer Sebastian Edschmid did some great scenes even if the movie wasn't perfect. One notable scene has the camera locked onto the face of a character as he is dragged and then crucified. As in much of the film clever cuts don't show all the violence but being jerked around along with the character as he is tortured really was a good, dark touch. The music and sound by (I believe) Christian Henson is good and plays with the absence of sound like I haven't seen since the last religious action movie I watched, Book of Eli
So all in all I have to say I really like this thriller period piece. Even after watching it I can't firmly identify if the movie was pro or anti Christianity, but it does seem to say it is against hunting witches... maybe? I personally love when the message in a movie becomes a bit muddled, but some may dislike this. It also deals with medieval Christianity and its sponsored savagery so some religious folk may feel like skipping it. This movie will draw you into a world where questions aren't answered, the supernatural may be real, and violence or thrills lie in every dark forest. I would recommend this movie to horror fans who want something deeper than Saw-like gore-porn and people interested in medieval history.
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