Protraph Lack of good storyline.

LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

RealChristian14 Patrick Coyle provides us a great indie film starring Jeremy Sisto and Kristin Chenoweth that has a story involving a Catholic priest and a suicidal prostitute in "Into Temptation". It presents us interesting themes that consist of religious overtones and undertones such as forgiveness,redemption,righteousness,celibacy,renewal of commitment to one 's calling.Aside from that,it also provides an examination on Catholicism particularly its teachings,the clergy and the sacraments particularly Confession.The screenplay presents two central characters namely:Fr.John Burlein and Linda Salerno.The story starts when we get to witness Fr. John hearing confession from a woman who uses the sacrament to tell tales of her husband and providing counsels to different congregants such as an expectant mother,a man who is having feelings of homosexuality and an unemployed boxer.We get to see him becoming bored of his routine as a priest particularly confession when he carries a paper to answer crossword puzzle and also being someone who does not adhere to everything that that the Catholic Church preaches as he suggests flexibility and tolerant to homosexuals.Things become interesting when he hears a confession of Linda who admits to him of planning to kill herself.Before he could give the absolution,he tries to talk to Linda about her plans.But she leaves him before he could.This prompt him to search for her which brings him to the red-light district which brings him to temptation as it exposes him to a surroundings of overt sexuality.Things get worse when an ex-girlfriend who still have romantic feelings for him visits him in his parish.The film really worked for me for many reasons.First,we have two interesting central characters that undergo journeys of their own Fr.John and Linda. Fr. John started in the screenplay as a priest who is somewhat losing his passion for priesthood due to the dwindling mass attendees in his church;his liberal mindset as he is not in total agreement with the Church's teachings especially in not crossing the boundaries of helping lost souls; and his fights against the feelings of celibacy especially with his mother's constant nagging from having no grandchildren and the restrictions of probably renewing his relationship with his newly divorced high school sweetheart with whom he still have feelings for.But upon hearing the confessions of Linda,we get to see him change into a renewed and committed priest during his search for the prostitute as he once more realizes the true nature of his calling which apparently was to help people whether turning them to God or providing them of their needs in any way he and the Church can whether helping the poor or providing counsel to the congregants to lead them into a renewed life.Despite the fact that he wasn't able to help Linda,the frustration he experienced made him a better and more committed priest in the end. Sisto did a wonderful job as Fr. John as the viewer could totally relate to him as a man who found himself again as a clergy.As for Linda,we get to her journey from the path of immorality as a prostitute after suffering sexual abuse from his stepfather to that of redemption will simply touch the viewer.It will definitely help them realize the importance of one's examination of life particularly the actions one has carried out.Added to that,we also would admire her for her ability to ask for God's forgiveness and to forgive her stepfather knowing the sufferings she experienced. Despite that little of her journey was told in the film as we did not fully know her character well just we did not know whether she killed herself or not in the end,her character would definitely leave a profound impact to the viewer.Give credit to Chenoweth for the marvelous performance.In summary,Into Temptation is one independent religious film that is worthy to be seen.

rooprect Perhaps like you, I hesitated to watch this film because I thought it might fall into the standard clichés of a religious thriller (like a cluelessly naïve priest, a slutty prostitute, gratuitous booty shots, vapid dialogue, blatant religious or anti-religious propaganda, predictable ending, etc), so I came to IMDb to check out the reviews. As others have said, this is indeed a great movie. I was really surprised at how much substance the filmmakers packed into this 95 min film. It constantly surprised me and was never predictable while making logical sense the whole way through. And it leaves us with a powerful message we can all munch on, religious folks & atheists alike.Through Jeremy Sisto's character, an intelligent and curious young priest, we are presented with a lot of fascinating themes. Though set amid the Catholic church, we don't get any church propaganda nor do we get church bashing. Instead the film focuses on human beings and how, regardless of god & religion, we attempt to find peace in our souls. The film never comes across as preachy, yet it shows us the value of human interactions and how our trivial actions can have enormous consequences.Conversely, the lascivious underworld of sex & debauchery presents another venue, but the film never descends to the obvious moralizing. Again, they're all shown to be human beings with human interactions, and it's the value of these interactions that gives the world meaning.This is a very dialogue-driven, tone-driven movie. In other words, no car chases, shootouts or big explosions. Instead the interesting characters carry the film and do so brilliantly. There's a lot of playful banter between characters, and the witty humour is what really makes this a fun film even though it makes us think.This may sound odd, but it reminded me a lot of The Exorcist III, another excellent film that packs much more than the DVD cover implies. Both films revolve around a man whose faith is unconventional, who is trying to make sense of a bizarre mystery & how it relates to matters of the soul. And both films have some great humour despite being thrillers. Don't forget the great acting. Jeremy Sisto's quiet, inexperienced-yet-savvy character in Into Temptation is like a young George C Scott in The Exorcist III. Put your thinking cap on, see both films, and I guarantee you won't be disappointed.Other obscure films that this reminded me of (and which I also recommend) are "Rudy Blue" (1999), "Angela" (1995), and "The Merry Gentleman" (2008).

laz000 The only thing not well done in this awesome little film by Patrick Coyle is a sense of urgency in the Priest's (Introspectively played by Jeremy Sisto) pursuit of a troubled call girl (brilliantly played by Kristin Chenoweth) wishing to take her life but seeking absolution beforehand. Much of the film focuses on the Priest's history, his day to day and his pursuit of the call girl who confesses that she will kill herself on her birthday. We learn a lot about what he does and bit about who he is as a person. What makes this a really good film is how little we get to see of the Call girl's life. What little we do see however, gives us so much into why she is so angry, so sad, and why she so desperately needs absolution for what she sees as the only way out of her misery.While I had flashbacks to Stigmata without the supernatural elements, and vastly better written, the sadness hit me all the same. A definite must see.

PeachHamBeach ***********POSSIBLE BIG-TIME SPOILERS!!!************* This film is a rare and very precious gift, for real. It took me 2 viewings to fully comprehend what message it was trying to convey, and that's true with any film. There are NO flaws in this film. If it seems too slow or introspective or you feel it's not "talking" loudly enough for you, you may be like me: You need to see it at least twice.It is a quiet, gentle, yet intensely communicative film about damage, sin, searching for one's faith, begging for absolution while knowing that life cannot go on, a misguided attempt to intervene, the realization of one's terrible mistakes, forgiveness and atonement.In an inner-city Catholic parish, ironically named St. Mary Magdalen's, a young priest (Jeremy Sisto), ordained 12 years ago, keeps busy and dedicated to God's work. When not listening to busybody wives complain incessantly about their husband's habits, he is counseling mothers-to-be, a conflicted youth who believes he is gay, and an unemployed ex-boxer; or he is running a homeless shelter, praying over the sick/dying, or attending mandatory speaking appearances with the ladies' auxillary.His life, while super-busy and tirelessly dedicated, seems strangely routine somehow. But one evening, before Mass, a beautiful blond woman named Linda (Kristin Chenoweth) comes to confession for the first time in nearly 2 decades. She confesses that she wants to end her life on her own birthday, sometime in the very near future, and she strongly needs Father John to give her an answer: Am I damned for eternity if I commit this "unpardonable" sin? She spends a while telling John her sad tale, then leaves abruptly.The first sign that Father John Buerlein is about to embark on an interesting journey was not evident to me on first viewing. And I don't want to spoil it too much; Father John had a certain task to perform, right there in that confessional booth, and he should have concentrated on that one task. As Father Ralph O'Brien (Brian Baumgartner) puts it, "Don't cross that line, John." From the first moment he encounters Linda, though, John seems unable to put it out of his mind. He finds himself preoccupied even at the pulpit. He keeps hearing her voice, and maybe, he already is aware of the mistake he's made handling this encounter, and desperately needs to make things right before she carried out her final plans. He begins to conduct a search for Linda, whose whole face he never got a look at, only her hair, lips and the crucifix she wore. His desperation, his need to make it up to her that he didn't do what he should have in the booth, drive him to places he would never have gone to. He HAS TO FIND HER. That's all he knows. And it seems he must do what he must. He researches prostitutes in the public library, he takes a prostitute out for a drink, and most bizarre, when the owner of a sex shoppe tells him he has to buy something in order to look around the place for Linda, he buys a porn magazine. Somehow, even though he knows he is treading in dangerous waters, his obsession with finding and stopping Linda is so strong that he believes that if he fraternizes with the patrons of the streets, pimps, prostitutes, peep show dancers and porn shoppes, he will somehow find Linda and save her life.Why is he obsessed so? Does he feel like the work he's already doing not really go anywhere? Is he, a seasoned priest, not really sincere and on the prowl for some good carnal fun? Is he going through the motions, having become "lukewarm" in his faith? Not at all. It's more than obvious, he needs to find Linda again and help her, like he should have in the first place.The characters Zeke, Gus and Miriam are so mysteriously crafted that at first I was asking, "Angels among us?" Oh yeah, and we can't forget James St. Clair!!! While we follow Father John on his journey through the dark streets of Linda's world, we take an internal tour of him as well, and as much as I loved Chenoweth's portrayal of the tortured Linda, this is definitely Sisto's film for the most part. We find out a lot about him, and the many sources of earthly, fleshly "temptation" that a lesser person would cave and succumb to. After all the negative portrayals we've seen and heard of Catholic priests, it is as refreshing as a winter night's air to see a man, a young man at that, be this disciplined and dedicated, to possess such a strength of spirit, to be able to resist what most men weaken and lust after. John doesn't even waver in the presence of his beautiful ex-girlfriend Nadine (Amy Matthews) who is back in town and asking him point blank if he still has feelings and desires for her. The film will not be for you if you are looking for action and explosions are one-liners. The humour is extremely good, but there will be no spoofing or schock-sex-humour or big jokes like in a film like DOGMA by Kevin Smith (also an admirable film about the Catholic faith, but very different from this!!!) The pace is very fast, but again, the key word here is subtlety. You have to pay close attention to every word, every scene, every detail. The only gripes I'll offer is that I don't know whose pix Linda is looking at in that scene where she is going thru a box of her stuff.Honestly, I didn't know what I'd think of it, being that it is a film about a priest descending into a dark underground to find a hooker. But I love this film! I'll give it an A+.