Raymond I'm a huge fan of The Name of the Rose and I try to catch all medieval movies I can. I ran into this by chance, but read from here that it should be a good looking movie in the style of TNOTR. It wasn't at all, I was hugely disappointed.The story is a murder mystery, yes. The setting is medieval with castles and all, yes. That's about it, I can't think of other similarities. But let's start with the good things.The acting is pretty good as far as Bettany and a few others go. I've never been a huge fan of any of these actors, but especially Bettany played his role very well, it's not often that you see a role played so richly yet it doesn't go into theatrical over acting. The story is also interesting and the production design and locations are gorgeous. The biggest problem I had with the movie is that it feels more like a stage play rather than a movie. While there are few nice and creative shots and - I'll mention again - the sets look great, the cinematography and lighting varies from OK to plain awful most of the time. It's very confusing. Lot's of hand held camera and there appears to be zero post processing or color correction. It felt sort of improvised, more like a theatrical act captured on video rather than a movie where you actually care about the aesthetics of the shots.It's kind of annoying that such great sets and locations are ruined by this directorial decision. I'm guessing many didn't mind this as there are very good reviews, but to me it matters a lot how the film looks and feels. While the atmosphere is kind of medieval, it's not "movie medieval", it's like you'd be visiting the village today and they were performing this as a summer theater act. At night the castle was lit like a tourist attraction.I was kind of surprised of all this as some on the boards mentioned McGuigan being a visual director with lackluster stories. I find this the exact opposite. The story is so much better than the visuals that ended up on screen.

Paul Creeden I suppose there is an audience for a movie like this in an age when educated people boldly deny evolution as a valid scientific theory in favor of Biblical creationism. However, I cringed throughout. The vastness of wasted talent in this movie is the only impressive thing about it. All of them stumbling through its muddled morality mush of pseudo-Christian, homophobic, anarchical nonsense, set in a Medieval period which could not have possibly hosted these events. It would have been more believable if it had been staged on a distant planet with old Star Trek TV sets. Paul Bettany manages to escape with a small amount of dignity by delivering his corny speeches with Shakespearean zeal and by dying quite well. Vincent Cassel has no aptitude as a 1950s-style homosexual villain. It seemed his heart just wasn't in it to his credit. Another turkey that somehow got off the ground in a world where many swans never get their wings.

verb80 Shame to see any Dafoe movie go down like this, after all the such a great actor and given us so many great movies.. although anyone who loves making movies like Dafoe & is in so many films bound to be apart of a few flops, and this is one. While this idea of "The Reckoning" is interesting enough, it actually starts well and are transported into the 1300's medieval time period. But the problem with this film is exactly what its trying to be. The movie at times is bit preachy which isn't the problem, but trying to mix it with a murder tail just didn't work good here. The acting overall is good, although does not make up for the rather lackluster middle and certainly ending to this movie. Fans of Dafoe should at least see once, although be warned you will not be adding this to your Dafoe collection. 5/10

ayn5242 I really like Paul Bettany and Dafoe is either wonderful or awful depending on the role, but always worth watching. I also think Barry Unsworth, author of the book on which this film was based, is a superb writer. So when I came across this movie, I was anxious to see it, and in some ways it did not disappoint.It was well acted. Paul and Dafoe were both good, and the supporting players were convincing. The script was weak, however. The villain was so heinous he was almost a cartoon and the motives of our hero (Bettany's character) we muddled at best. And although the villagers certainly looked like I would imagine 14th century serfs would look, they seemed to have enough leisure time to worry about social injustice and working together for a better life (when they were not searching for roots and twigs, no doubt).It would have been a far more interesting movie if it had concerned itself with the trials and travails of the traveling players instead of trying to be an action/suspense film.