untitled
DELIVER
US FROM EVIL
Written & Directed by: Amy Berg
Internet
Movie
Database Entry for full details
GRADE: C+
2006.
I can't fault
writer-director Amy Berg for tackling a subject—presbyteral
molestation and the subsequent Catholic cover-up—in Deliver
Us From Evil that's by now old hat, since she scored a
remarkable opportunity too extraordinary to pass-up: an exclusive,
three day interview with the straightforward and candidly confessional
Oliver O'Grady, a former priest and convicted sex abuser now living in
Irish exile. But ultimately O'Grady presents Berg with quite a
conundrum that she doesn't quite having the courage to confront, and
which ultimately brings Deviler Us From Evil
down—Oliver O'Grady is the most likeable and charismatic
person in the film. When he reappears near the end, after a long hiatus
from the narrative, I was happy to see him again, and yet this is a man
that admittedly molested and raped probably upwards of hundreds of
children over the course of his ignoble career!
O'Grady is and always was an ostensibly unassuming and non-threatening
presence, "the perfect example of what a priest would be," according to
the mother of one of his victims, but on the inside O'Grady is a fiend,
a sociopathic pedophile who admits that nothing gets him jonesing like
a child in a bathing suit. The basic story, as I said, is familiar:
O'Grady is first accused of abuse in 1976 and, over the course of the
next decade or two, is bounced around Central California, from Lodi to
Thurlock to Stockton to San Andreas, where in every city and town it's
basically the same story (until he was finally arrested and convicted
in 1993): he's accused of some sort of "inappropriate touching", the
victims are promised he'll be moved to a place where he won't have
access to children, and the diocese moves him to a new parish where he
in fact does have access to children, whom he starts molesting
immediately. In the interviews, from Berg's own footage and previously
recorded, decade-old depositions, O'Grady remains calmly and cooly
composed, laying out the specifics of his actions and mental states as
though fully aware of what he did but completely removed from the
reality of his actions. (One attorney asks him if he's ever been
diagnosed with dissociative disorder, to which he mockingly responds,
"I'm sure I fit the category of a lot of disorders.") His demeanor is
all matter-of-fact, and while it should be unsettling in a Hannibal
Lechter sort of way I actually found it rather inviting; after all,
this man devoted some thirty years and all of his intellectual
capacities into deceiving children and their families, making them
trust him, so that he could then take advantage of them to satisfy his
vile urges. He's obviously always been good at manipulating people and
he's doing the same thing now on camera and Berg, in the name of
misguided objectivity, makes the fatal mistake of putting O'Grady on
camera and not challenging him directly. For a spell, Deliver
Us From Evil seems as thought it might have the potential
to, however unintentionally, glorify a child rapist.
So to prevent that from happening, Berg winds up overcompensating in
the other direction, resorting to shorthand emotional hokum, like long
shots of teary victims set against a drippy score and staged stunts
along the lines of Michael Moore—meant to elicit pity for the
victims and scorn for O'Grady—rather than letting him have it
or getting O'Grady to incriminate himself. The challenge to O'Grady is
indirect, offered by the children he hurt who, on camera, are banal in
their weepy victimhood. "He's a piece of crap, man," as the friend of
one victim eloquently notes, laconically capturing the tone of the
entire film. Berg's most vehement attack on Father O'Grady comes from
the father of one victim, who spends the last half of the film
literally screaming and crying about the pain the man caused his
family; it eventually degenerates into uncomfortable exploitation, the
camera lingering gratutiously, but without those scenes you'd still be
thinking about what a nice man that Oliver is. He's so honest and
seemingly repentent, knowing all his life that what he was doing was
wrong and aware that he needed help; "I should have been removed and
attended to," he admits, adding, with the inappropriate smirk he wears
throughout, "I'd like if all the bishops had done that." (Or,
phoenetically, "Oid like eff ahl da bishups had dun dat.")
Though of course the bishops didn't, and Deliver Us From Evil
only comes alive as a film during a single reel towards the end when it
engages in a fiery denigration of the Catholic Church's monarchical
structure that's packed with bishops more concerned with advancing
their own careers by eschewing scandal than with protecting children
from rapists. (Just as it's more concerned with condemning condoms than
preventing the spread of AIDS.) The film might have benefitted by
taking that even farther (though in its favor it does at least find
time to lay blame on the current Pope), or perhaps examining how in the
hell a man as despicable as O'Grady comes across as so gosh darn
likeable, but Deliver Us From Evil aspires not to
be psychologically revealing and only marginally revealing of the
Church's complicity, settling instead for a stream of dirty antecdotes,
always shocking and gross, balanced out by the tears of those affected.
It's easy to feel outraged at such a story, and even easier to exploit
that outrage as a filmmaker; that's not to say that Deliver
Us From Evil is an easy movie to sit through—it
goes out of its way to be disgusting—but it isn't risky,
challenging, or enlightening by any stretch of the imagination. "We
should all be in the business of protecting children," one interviewer
intones. Wow, how illuminating. Berg, who tellingly worked at 60
Minutes before becoming a filmmaker, has fashioned a news
magazine piece, though with more prurient details than the FCC would
ever permit, that merely parades repulsions around without ever
directly confronting a sick and twisted man.
--
Henry Stewart
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I can't fault
writer-director Amy Berg for tackling a subject—presbyteral
molestation and the subsequent Catholic cover-up—in Deliver
Us From Evil that's by now old hat, since she scored a
remarkable opportunity too extraordinary to pass-up: an exclusive,
three day interview with the straightforward and candidly confessional
Oliver O'Grady, a former priest and convicted sex abuser now living in
Irish exile. But ultimately O'Grady presents Berg with quite a
conundrum that she doesn't quite having the courage to confront, and
which ultimately brings Deviler Us From Evil
down—Oliver O'Grady is the most likeable and charismatic
person in the film. When he reappears near the end, after a long hiatus
from the narrative, I was happy to see him again, and yet this is a man
that admittedly molested and raped probably upwards of hundreds of
children over the course of his ignoble career!
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