Review: Priest
In Scott Stewart’s futuristic western horror, Priest, humans and vampires have been at war with each other for ages. This sustained combat had consumed the Earth; leaving regions uninhabitable. In response to the growing vampire threat, the Church had established a secret society of ‘Priests’ to fend off the vampires and end the bloodshed. Touched by God, these ‘Priests’ were an outfit of elite warriors who used their superior skills and weapons to defeat the vampires, bringing an end to the brutal conflict.
When the war ended with the Church victorious, what was left of the human race migrated into walled cities under the control of the Church, and these “Priests’ were inadequately re-instituted back into society. Marked with a black Christian cross tattooed across their forehead, now they walk the urban landscape as outcasts, tied to the city by a sacred vow not to defy the Church. But, when one of these ‘Priests’ played by Paul Bettany learns that his bother was badly wounded and his niece kidnapped during a vampire attack outside the city’s borders, he leaves the city in a direct act of disobedience to track down the vampires responsible. In response to the breaking of his scared vow, the remaining priests are called upon by the Church to return him back to the clergy, dead or alive.
Not sure what has possessed Paul Bettany and his dark religious roles of late; from the murderous albino monk in Ron Howard’s adaptation of The Da Vinci Code, to the archangel in Scott Stewart’s previous supernatural thriller, Legion. Here with Priest, he plays the nameless religious warrior, sure-handed in his decision-making and confident in his own abilities. He is never scared, never questions, and never doubts. His true battle is not with the vampires he brutalizes, but rather the battle that rages on within himself.
Maggie Q stars as a Priestess, who has been ordered by the clergy to retrieve Bettany, but finds herself divided between her loyalties to the Church as a deity and to the renegade Priest as a friend and fellow warrior. There is also a love story here, that the film doesn’t dwell on but its presence underlines their interactions. It’s a story of longing and sacrifice; a romance that can never be, given their vows of chastity. This impossible romance gives the film some heart, but not for a second does it think it’s anything more than a simple action flick.
Priest is a hybrid fusion of Road Warrior meets Judge Dread, with a little Blade tossed in for good measure, and as a result it’s a film that is more entertaining than it really has any right to be. A slick production design combined with an efficient 80 minute running time, this is a film in the same vein as Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch or Justin Lin’s Fast Five, in the sense that it’s not a film intended to enlighten, but rather entertain and in that inclination the film is a worth watching.
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