Hilary Swank stars as Katherine Winter, a former Christian missionary who lost her faith after the murder of her family and now spends her time debunking apparent religious miracles. Her work leads her to a small town called Haven which seems to be experiencing the ten biblical plagues.
Swank is good in anything, so you’re never completely disappointed with her films; however this latest effort from Dark Castle was perhaps their weakest yet.
The film takes a long time to get to the main storyline, which would be fine if the filmmakers were taking their time to establish their characters, but they don’t. Instead, we are treated to obvious scars, photographs, dream sequences and flashbacks which got a little derivative. This visual equivalent of force feeding us exposition got too much when Idris Elba appears in a vest obviously sporting gun shot wounds. This leads to a conversation between he and David Morrissey (who sports a dreadful accent throughout) which is the equivalent of ‘did you see my wounds by the way?’…‘oh no…I hadn’t noticed those’…‘yeah…I was shot’….NAH…YOU DON’T SAY! Guess what? Your audience has brains!
OVERALL SUMMARY
The Reaping’s strong points are the plagues (when they eventually happen), Swank and AnnaSophia Robb (oh and it was great to see William Ragsdale, ‘Charley Brewster’ from Fright Night, who plays the town Sherriff in the film). The climax is predictable (as is the realization about what’s really going on) but the film is saved by a last minute stinger and a cool closing credits sequence which I felt deserved some love from the ignorant audience who walked out.
