At its best, the low-budget Last Sin Eater achieves some powerful moments.
Comment
02/09/07
The Last Sin Eater (2007)
19
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:36
Fresh:7
Rotten:29
Average Rating:4.2/10
Consensus: This earnest Christian parable is undone by its pompous dialogue and cheap FX.
Runtime: 1 hr 58 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: When a mysterious man "absolves" her grandmother's sins by eating bread and wine at her grave, 10-year-old Cadi wants the same redemption -- while she's still alive! But in her quest for... [More]
Starring: Louise Fletcher, Henry Thomas, Liana Liberato, Soren Fulton
Director: Michael Landon
Reviews for The Last Sin Eater
Efforts to build suspense, with ominous music and dark figures flashing past the camera, are laughably amateurish, as is the made-for-TV cinematography.
02/08/07
If Sin Eater wasn't so laborious, it might be easier to overlook the movie's predictability. With too many slow-developing subplots, though, it finally illicits a feeling something like squirming in a hard pew during a long-winded sermon.
02/08/07
The look of The Last Sin Eater is muddy and indiscriminately focused. The camera always seems to be too far off when you wish to get a better look and too close when you wish that it would point at anything other than what’s in the frame.
02/08/07
A strong story is hindered here by on-the-nose dialogue and melodramatic delivery that makes it seem more like a pulpit-pounding sermon than a slyly subtle parable.
02/09/07
Folks wanting to hear the usual New Testament message will be pleased; others may feel that the tension dissolves in homilies and wish the main character weren't led around by a blonde-haired little angel in a white dress.
02/09/07
The Last Sin Eater has flaws too hard to ignore. The lovely shots of Appalachian vistas are spoiled by cheesy special effects straight from the 1960s Chroma-Key era.
02/08/07
As a window into an older culture, or an evening's entertainment with the family, you could certainly do worse.
02/09/07
The film's rhythm drags. And [director] Landon uses the 'when in doubt, pump up the score' method for signaling Cadi's emotions.
02/09/07
It's not horrible, though the rather chintzy production values have a glorified made-for-television look.
02/08/07
A watchable film for adults, though torturously glacial for kids.
02/09/07
Squanders its good intentions with its numbingly bloated 140-minute running time.
02/15/07
Top Critic[Actors Henry Thomas and Louise Fletcher] are hamstrung by stilted dialogue; every sentence addressed to Liberato seems to begin with 'My dear child.'
02/08/07
...[an] ambitious but sappy saga...the redemptive vibes are unevenly at work in this tepid tale of sin and salvation.
02/10/07
The special effects look like they were executed on somebody's laptop.
02/09/07
The Last Sin Eater is religious art for mainstream consumption.
02/09/07
Top CriticWhat should be a simple parable of redemption takes nearly an unforgivable 2 1/2 hours.
02/09/07
Perversely fascinating as a cultural document, but as a movie it's simply dreadful.
02/09/07
It has the same dramatic flatness of Love's Abiding Joy, which was made by the same filmmakers. Frankly, these folks are more suited to the Hallmark Channel.
02/09/07
It’s stunning how flat and lifeless this film is, and we won’t even talk about the chintzy special effects. Another cynical God-market outing from the folks at Fox Faith.
02/08/07
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