if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Jeremy Sisto stars in an independent drama that provides insights on the Catholic faith particularly the Sacrament of Reconciliation which is better known as Confession. The story involves a Catholic priest,Fr. John Burlein, who hears a confession of a prostitute named Linda Salerno,who intends to kill herself on her birthday.After listening to her confess and failing to give the absolution,the priest seeks out to look for her in the Minneapolis sex underworld wherein he discovers more about the trade of prostitution.As he makes his journey,Fr John also discovers more about himself like his personal flaws in relation to his vocation as a priest,the virtue of forgiveness, and sins committed by everyone. Hollywood has made numerous films about sexual sins committed by Catholic priests like Primal Fear and Spotlight.It is a welcome change to see this great independent film overall as it provides a positive light to Catholicism particularly priests.Fr John was presented as someone who wanted to sincerely help others despite being far from an ideal priest especially after hearing the confession of Linda.Jeremy Sisto gave a sincere performance in it.Added to that,we also get to see a refreshing screenplay that is based on reality and far from being clichéd nor predictable.The characters aren't simple nor one-sided as we get to see real people involved in the story.It will have viewers continue talking after the end credits have appeared.Finally,this indie drama definitely puts Catholicism in a good light as it gives appreciation to its sacraments particularly confession,its clergy and its teachings.

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.

***********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+.

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.