THE REAPING [R]
Hilary Swank is in serious danger of having her two Oscarsâ„¢ revoked. OK, it does not exactly work like that, but one would think that with such past acclaim would come some judgment. How she ends up in a supernatural clusterfart like this is a mystery for the ages. Swank (Freedom Writers) plays a former Christian missionary-turned-debunker of so-called miracles whose scientific investigation into the Biblical plagues marring a quiet Louisiana town draws her into a Rosemary’s Baby world in which nothing is as it seems. This brand of Sixth Sense-inspired, post-millennial booga-booga is a plague unto itself, disingenuous for allowing thousands of years of Old Testament ghost stories serve as a script, and short-sighted for letting a tag line like, “What hath God wrought?” serve as a convenient handle with which to toss the scorn-worthy mess around. –Robert Newton