The film holds the kernel of an interesting story suggesting that witches were responsible for the deadly 14th century Black Plague that wiped out an estimated 30 – 60% of the population of the known world. The resulting panic found groups of people brutally eliminated including women suspected of being witches, which at that time, was any one at the other end of an agenda.
More likely a black rat flea from China caused the plague, but where’s the drama in that? So women had to be killed so the good believers could pat themselves on the back and know they murdered for God and sanitation.
Cage and Perlman play a pair of long-time friends and knight/adventurers, finally sickened by their complicity in the ongoing wars of Europe, Asia and Africa and the lives of innocents that they’ve taken. They re-dedicate themselves to God but abandon the church that sponsored their bloody adventures; they are captured and imprisoned as ‘deserters’ to face certain death.
There’s a young girl chained to the ground of an adjoining cell who shows signs of ongoing torture but they’re not surprised - she is accused of witchcraft.
The king, who is dying of the plague, grants the knights their freedom on condition that they transport the witch to a remote monastery where she will be tried and if found guilty, and that would be highly likely, killed.
Their journey through the deadly Wormwood Forest is hazardous to the band (that now includes a priest, a knight wannabe and a guide) and signs and suggestions point to witchcraft used to endanger their sanity and lives.
Every clich̩ in the book is thrown at us Рmarauding attack wolves, things that go bump in the night, infighting, mistaken identity, insanity, the Jungian scary evil woman, and the omnipresent rotten footbridge that collapses just as they make the other side with their horses and wagons intact.
Cage makes a half-hearted attempt at sincerity, but his internal actor does the work by rote and he seems unengaged. Perelman seems to wink at the silliness of it all.
Claire Foy plays The Girl at all kinds of pitches, to portray her various sides - the evil witch, the demon, the poor victim, and the human, living girl and does an okay job. But the script fails her as her story isn’t developed, despite the fact that her character and all she stands for is the center of the film.
The film’s major problem is that there is too much ground to cover, too many side characters who need explication, so that none are particularly well defined and our sympathies don’t find a place to roost.
Written by Bragi F. Schut
Directed by Domenic Sena
Runtime: 113 minutes
Stars: Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman and Claire Foy
Source: M&C