FILM REVIEW: 'THE CONFESSION'

Now Streaming: Kiefer Sutherland & John Hurt Delve Into Human Nature in Online Thriller

By: Jesse Livingston

February 16, 2012

(Digital Broadcasting Group) The Confession is notable for two reasons. First, it's a tight, harrowing drama about a hit-man (Kiefer Sutherland) confessing his sins to a priest (John Hurt) and threatening to kill more people if the priest doesn't help him understand God and forgiveness. Second, it was originally broadcast in five-to-seven-minute chunks on Hulu. As such, it represents one of the first attempts at big-budget drama in “webisode” form.

The production itself is first-rate. The photography is beautiful, the actors are well-known and excellent in their roles, and the writing is stunningly good. Viewers will need to prepare themselves to suspend some disbelief at the core conceit of the film, but the ideas explored are so profound that any questions of “Would this really happen?” and “Do people really talk like this?” are easily dismissed. The best way to approach the film is as a high-concept play that just happens to be in cinematic form.

The Confession is essentially a philosophical debate in dramatic clothing. It's a treatise on suffering and abuse masquerading as a crime thriller. The dialogue is high-minded but never stilted, and Sutherland's and Hurt's performances are so raw and real that they are actually difficult to watch at times. These two actors brilliantly inhabit two self-loathing, emotionally annihilated men who can barely stand to be in the same room with each other or themselves.

The two characters appear at first to be polar opposites, but are soon revealed to have many unsuspected things in common. Hurt's priest is emotionally open on the surface, but hides terrifyingly evil secrets. Sutherland's hit-man seems completely emotionless, but has actually buried his feelings deep in order to deal with the abuse he has suffered. The priest is more expressive of his pain, and his eventual breakdown is awful to see; however, the hit-man may ultimately be the more pathetic and pitiable figure, as he has allowed himself to sink to the depths of rage and vengeance, and clearly has no method of escape.

Sutherland seems born to play this role, and it's not a stretch to say that this is probably his best performance since 1992's A Few Good Men. He perfectly captures the bemused wonder and metaphysical dread of a monster beginning to question the life he has led. The scene in which he quizzically studies a man he's about to kill as the victim makes his peace with God is especially memorable. Sutherland puts himself so completely into this role that, once you see it, it's hard to imagine him as anyone else. It's almost as though he himself is confessing his sins to the audience, doing penance for all the less substantial action-thriller work he's done over the years. Whatever the case, he certainly reveals depths here that we may have forgotten he had.

Sutherland came up with the idea for The Confession when he was trying to imagine how to tell a serious story in the short, segmented webisode format. It's certainly a powerful concept — two men sitting in a dimly lit box, discussing the darkest of human doubts, with only their voices to keep each other company.

Most of the credit for the story's effectiveness, however, must go to Brad Mirman, The Confession's writer and director. Mirman packs more thorough questioning of human nature into an hour's worth of screen-time than most courses in philosophy or psychology can manage in months. The problems which the hit-man raises — the reasons why he is unable to accept religion — are the same fundamental problems that have troubled thinkers since the dawn of history. Mirman manages to put them all in one place, and to make them simple, palatable, and digestible to the average viewer. Now that's good writing.

The Confession may have been conceived as a way to push the medium of dramatic storytelling forward, but the irony is that it ultimately doesn't matter in what format it was initially broadcast. Now that it's been recut for DVD and streaming services, what we're left with is a short but highly effective feature film. It may have accomplished its goal, however, by proving that the online medium can produce and support excellent cinema. If web series can bring us work of this quality, then let's have more of them.

For Fans Of:  A Few Good Men, The Sopranos, The Woodsman, Doubt

Why We Like It: philosophical yet action-packed, very well-acted, great photography, an exploration of a new medium