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Crimen del padre Amaro, El
EMAILPRINTSamuel Goldwyn Films
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 29 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 15 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Foreign
Written by:
Vicente Leñero
Eça de Queirós (novel)
Directed by: Carlos Carrera
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 15, 2002
DVD: April 22, 2003
Running Time: 120 minutes, Color
Origin: Mexico / Spain / Argentina / France
Summary
RATING: R for sexuality, language and some disturbing images
Starring Gael García Bernal, Ana Claudia Talancón, Sancho Gracia, Angélica Aragón, Luisa Huertas, Ernesto Gómez Cruz, Gastón Melo, and Damián Alcázar
The scandalous story of a young priest, Father Amaro (Bernal), assigned to a church in a small village in remote Mexico, who falls in love with a teenage girl, Amelia (Talancon), who then becomes pregnant with his baby, and asks for his help in getting an abortion.
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Excellent acting, intelligent screenwriting, and dynamic filmmaking give this Mexican production a forceful emotional and intellectual charge.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
A feverish melodrama about an idealist who, in following his heart and his bishop's orders, leads himself into temptation and his parish into hypocrisy.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
Bernal, with his sweet man-boy looks, makes Padre Amaro's portrait of corruption all the more flabbergasting in its irony.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
Carrera's direct, unadorned style has none of the searing imagery or cinematic imagination of "Y Tu Mama," but it bristles with passion, anger and a palpable sense of betrayal.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
May be morally tangled, pessimistic, lurid and foreboding, but it's also humanistic.
Read Full Review >New York Post Megan Lehmann
Commendably, Carrera steers clear of preachiness in his exploration of a timely and relevant issue, and Bernal's transformation from naive priest to tortured adulterer to hard-nosed careerist is riveting.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Not an indictment of the Catholic Church as a whole, but a thought-provoking look at what can happen when decent individuals are seduced by the power of their position.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Carrera directs with a light touch, letting the screenplay speak for itself.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann
Conveys the character of this tiny, insular community through richness of detail.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
It's more of a melodrama, a film that doesn't say priests are bad but observes that priests are human and some humans are bad.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Roundly condemned (though not banned) by Church officials in Mexico, the film became a smash hit -- probably in part because the public wrangling gave it an enormous publicity boost.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Carrera's filmmaking is more workmanlike than stylish, but Padre Amaro is richly character driven and, for all its insolent, grotesque humor, straightforwardly humanist in its psychology.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Schickel
Carrera's handsome film offers a richly detailed portrait of a church not so much corrupt as morally lazy after centuries in command of an overwhelmingly Catholic country.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
Would have been better served if Carrera had spent a little more energy developing his story and less on emphasizing his message.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Carrera's style is hard-hitting, lucid and technically superior (if unimaginative). El Crimen del Padre Amaro eventually moves and stirs you, even if it often resembles those steamy Mexican TV dramas/soap operas called telenovelas.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Marta Barber
Had the film been more balanced, it would have added a new star to the recent wave of remarkable Mexican cinema.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Staff (Not credited)
How does it all play up here in colder and more secular climes? In a word -- melodramatically.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Ends up being nothing more than a stifling morality tale dressed up in peekaboo clothing.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
A suds-filled political melodrama that bashes the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico with a contempt that verges on hysteria, could be accused of many things, but timidity is not one of them.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
The remarkable things about the new film, adapted by Vicente Leñero and directed by Carlos Carrera, are how smoothly it has been transposed to today's Mexico and how far good acting and skillful directing have gone toward tempering those melodramatic roots.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The real crime is the way that the movie turns Gael García Bernal, the hot-tempered, Roman-lipped costar of ''Y Tu Mamá También, into a backwater Freddie Prinze Jr.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
However much the film may mirror the truth, dramatically it feels like a cheat. It omits the human spark that would make it work as a film, rather than a collection of dramatized issues.
Read Full Review >Variety Dennis Harvey
Respectably crafted to avoid lurid excess, feature is nonetheless a bit potboilerish in its pileup of sexy, violent, duplicitous circumstances that plague the consciences of latter-day clergymen.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
The tone is that of a telenovela -- soap-operatic at heart -- even though the film was adapted from a 19th-century novel.
LA Weekly Ernest Hardy
The tragic ending they tack on to the film reinforces the same fear-mongering notion of cause and effect that gives the Church its power to abuse and exploit, and the film winds up muffling its own powerful protest.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
At two hours, the movie goes on too long and resolves too little -- even though it provides some interesting moments along the way.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J. R. Jones
Amaro is so lacking in gravitas that there's no opportunity to explore the intense emotionality of the church in Latin America --which is the source of its temporal power.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Father Amaro comes off as another pedophile in a frock. You'd have to hose this guy down if he were driving a school bus.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 15 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Frank O. gave it a7:
Felt like two different movies; first half being local politics and the church; 2nd half the relationship between Father Amaro and Ana character. Publicity, trailer and DVD description misleading about the overriding theme of story.
Alma L. gave it a10:
Very Good!
enrique i gave it a3:
This movie is very pathetic and just as another siege to the Roman Catholic Church (after the Da vinci code). well, sorry, i have first read the book DVC and watched this movie. It is pathetic in its futile attempt to backlash the Holy Church, but I admire the over all impact of the movie. Thank you.
Jesse M. gave it a 10:
I have to say, as a movie director and a script writter, i have to give this creation of art a 10!!! so many things to say about the film so little time, Carlos Carrera man i hope i get a chance to work with you some day, i think we could come up with an outstanding film, this film in general has to be one of the best films i have seen throught my 10 years of studying film. The way Carlos made us feel sorry for El padre amaro throught the film, in which he really is a bad guy.... well to you fans out their....i think Carlos did a hell of a job putting this film together. and vicentte i cant forget you man, i god of script writters...good luck in the future films....and i hope your flame doesnt die off!! keep up the good work!!! much love.peace out!
Aldo A. gave it a 10:
The movie is great, specially the cinematography. Some people didn't like it because of the critic to the church, and I think that's the reason of its losing the best foreign movie oscar...
Maria H. gave it a 9:
This film goes against all ethics, both at home and at church. I heard much controversy around the film because of it's content. Nevertheless, this film is educational on many levels. I liked it because of it's eye-openning and mind twisting content.
Miguel R. gave it a 10:
Simply some of the best Mexican work ever. As "Amores Peros" and "Y tu Mama Tambien" Gael Bernal makes and incredible role with some of his best work yet.
