This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

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.

This is a quietly charming film filled with nice performances and an honest dignity that doesn't flinch from reality, yet avoids wallowing in the sensational. It tells a relatively wholesome tale about some sordid subjects and proves you can do that without seeming corny or fake.John Buerlein (Jeremy Sisto) is a young Catholic priest who's brought a withered parish back to life. He's started up a homeless shelter and is a wonderful counselor to his congregation, whether it's the unwed mother railing against Church teachings about gender, the unemployed man struggling with sense of self, the gay teen coming to terms with his identity or the neighborhood busybody who thinks confession is a time to complain about her husband. What John isn't good at are the more public roles of the priest, particularly preaching and being a public figure in the community.One day in confession, John hears some startling words from a beautiful woman (Kristin Chenoweth). She says she's a prostitute and that her upcoming birthday will be her last…because she's going to kill herself. She slips away before John can do anything, but he can't stop thinking about her. This good man awkwardly plunges himself into the seedy underbelly of his city, searching for the woman to try and save her. The woman, named Linda, sets about tying up all the loose ends of her life. She cancels her newspaper subscription, says goodbye to all her "clients" and has a last talk with the stepfather who started raping her when she was 12. Will John be able to find Linda without becoming contaminated by the tawdry world she inhabits? Will he be able to say anything to dent her determination toward suicide? I encourage you to rent this DVD and find out.I quite enjoyed Into Temptation. It's a rather reserved film, without any of the sturm and/or drang you might expect for this sort of story and neither vilifies the Catholic faith nor exploits the licentiousness of whoredom. This has all the makings of some cheap, melodramatic potboiler about a priest tormented into breaking his vows and the jezebel who comes between him and God, but Into Temptation is nothing like that. John Buerlein isn't tormented. He's a genuinely devout man who believes in the life he's chosen to lead. That doesn't mean he's some sort of goody two shoes, just that he tries to choose what is right over what is wrong. This movie is a little too racy to be for the whole family but in the way it directly confronts the conflicts of faith in an often faithless world, this film is like something you would show to Catholic teens (or young folk of any denomination) so they could see how their religion can flow through their lives and not simply be something they do on Sundays.The story also draws some interesting parallels between the priest and the prostitute and not in an insulting or demeaning way. It makes you consider how they both live lonely lives because the things they do for others don't leave any room for themselves. The celibate priest and the hooker both keep the rest of the world at a distance. Their "jobs" require it.There's some very nice and restrained acting on display here. There are no histrionics to either Jeremy Sisto's or Kristin Chenoweth's work. There is no scenery chewing or explosions of emotion. They both define their characters by what they don't do and their resolute way of not doing it. Chenoweth lets Linda's silence tell us about the unfathomable pain of a woman who's led a hard life and is worn down to the nub. Sisto gives John a polite strength. He's a man that may struggle to understand the right thing to do but once he does, he won't be turned away from doing it. Brian Baumgartner is wonderful and funny as a fellow priest who's a mentor to John. Father Ralph is very much John's opposite. He's much more comfortable and capable at the public role of the priesthood, but he uses humor and sarcasm to keep himself separate from the messy aspects of humanity that John is brave enough to embrace.The only real complaint I could make about Into Temptation, outside of Chenoweth remaining clothed throughout the film, is that it's imbalanced. We get all of John's story, including a bit where his teenage girlfriend comes back to town and makes a drunken pass at him. It's handled more respectfully than such a thing normally is in entertainment, but it's unnecessary. However, the movie only gives us snippets of Linda's story. When she gives her confession at the start, we only hear a few lines and then the film skips over the rest. John hears Linda's story, but the audience never gets anything but the barest of details. That continues throughout Into Temptation, where we only get flashes of what Linda is doing. Chenoweth does an excellent job packing a lot of meaning into those brief scenes, which only increases the desire to see more. Instead of fully being a tale of two people, this is a movie about John with Linda is relegated to a compelling supporting character.If you spend any time looking around a video store, you'll find an awful lot of movies you've never heard of. Most of them suck and suck hard. You've probably never heard of Into Temptation. But it's worth watching.

I am bringing two skill sets to this review; (1) a tough movie critic, and (2) an irreverent but informed ex-seminary student. On both fronts, this film was spectacular.(1) The writing was excellent in terms of being contemporary-- especially in light of the context of a Catholic priest--irreverent, unpredictable, unassuming in its theological treatment, unconventional, and (thankfully!) at the end, refreshingly unresolved.(2) The themes were consistently theologically grounded, albeit within the Catholic vernacular. Father Ralph brings a distinctly expedient and assured style into the dialogue, while Father John brings a more deliberate, cognitive but dedicated approach. The two balance each other like a great "work team" arriving at a plausible and thought-provoking explanation for the darkness that is our human condition.This film was surprisingly excellent. Upon watching a few previews prior to the film, I had significant doubts that I would finish a full 95 minutes of viewing. Yet the film brought me through real life, uncomfortable conversations, earnest seeking, genuine intent, and left me with the best possible theological conclusion: one of Grace.

I watched Into Temptation on Netflix's recommendation despite the film's stale-sounding plot outline, primarily because Jeremy Sisto had the lead role. To my surprise, the story turned out to be enveloping and the direction well-paced. Jeremy Sisto was, as expected, excellent: it's not easy to play the role of one Catholic priest and still connect with an audience, what with people bringing well-formed notions about all priests to the table. Rather than shoulder the burden of controversy, Sisto performs Father John Buerlein as a simple, flawed but honest guy. Coyle works in slight transgressions from Buerlein's past and present to help us suspend our cynicism about the church. It works.Great as Sisto was, Kristin Chenoweth's role was probably the more difficult of the two. The story of her Linda Salerno needed to be told almost exclusively through flashbacks, one confession and a series of ambiguous moments - not many lines to understand, let alone connect with, a troubled and aging high-end prostitute who places absolution high on her checklist of things to do before committing suicide. Chenoweth plain nails it, presents her pain in subtle ways and never tries to be a saint (Sisto's parish, not coincidentally, is a shrine to Mary Magdalene).Overall, there are some small plot imperfections that acting and direction redeem. It's an excellent film, well-worth the time and money.