The Third Miracle

Rating:
Summary: Miracle of Miracles
Review: The process of "making" a saint is an unusual topic for a film and Agnieszka Holland makes the most of it by bringing it down to the human level in "The Third Miracle." And Ms. Holland is very lucky indeed to have two of the finest actors as her humans: Ed Harris and Anne Heche. Harris plays a priest whose job it is to verify the "saintability" of Heche's mother. There are several plot lines swirling around in the film including Harris' committment or lack thereof to his religion, the miracles themselves and who they happen to as well as the process of making someone a saint. What sets "The Third Miracle" apart and above most films is the manner in which the relationships are scripted. A script is the backbone of any film and the words are its'fingers and toes. "The Third Miracle" is an extremely hearfelt movie and an obvious labor of love to all involved. Order it NOW.

Rating:
Summary: You Can't Miss It
Review: The question I keep asking after renting The Third Miracle is how could have missed it in the theaters. I mean, it's one of the best movies I have seen in many years. You don't have to be a person of faith to see a priest suffering the horrors of hell in his heart and mind when everything he sees and touches doesn't make sense. That is, until his bishop puts him to work to find out if a fervent woman who lived in her parish convent was truly a saint. It takes three miracles to declare that a person obviously has a special relationship with God in Heaven, and the priest can prove only two. Ed Harris is wonderful, the hearing by cardinals and bishops is certainly fair and within our reach, compared to the images most people have about the power of the hierarchy. It's just a marvelous movie. Go see it.

By the way, the third miracle is right there in front of our eyes..but I won't spoil your enjoyment of a great mystery story. Jim Crosson

Rating:
Summary: A Good Movie, but Flawed
Review: The Third Miracle is a good movie with rousing performances that, sadly, falls into the same old Catholics-in-movies traps that so many others have fallen in before them.

Ed Harris is fine as Fr. Frank Shores, a priest who devotes himself to researching miracles for the Church. At the beginning of the movie, he is "in hiding," living in a flophouse, having either lost his faith or moved in that direction with greateer momentum as a result of a previous investigation of a miracle that he...misjudged? We don't really know. He clearly regrets his decision, but the priest whom he was investigating died under dubious circumstance, and left behind some documents that can most generously be called "curious." Fr. Shores' decision seems like the only reasonable one. Still, he tortures himself for having destroyed a community's faith.

Shores' new assignment is to investigate an immigrant "housewife saint," who lived in a Polish-Catholic Chicago ghetto. Years earlier, a little girl with a terminal blood disease prayed to the church's statue of Mary, which bled on her; the girl was immediately cured. The blood, parishioners believe, is the blood of the housewife saint.

Anne Heche's character plays an important role in this movie, but is sadly misused. She is not only the daughter the housewife saint left in order to "pay her debt to God," she becomes Fr. Shores' predictably ultra-perky love interest. Yes, THAT old chestnut! Curiously, the filmmaker stops short of having them actually go to bed together...they just kiss, pant, and grope. There seems little reason for so explicitly revealing an attraction between the two, when actors as capable as they are could certainly convey this without the histrionics--in this case, less would have been more.

Armin Mueller-Stahl is perfect as the tribunal naysayer. He steals the scenes he's in. His resistance to Shores' housewife saint is only superficially convincing, and the scene in which he reveals it remains unconvincing--not because of the actors, but because it is poorly scripted.

Still, the movie is worth a look. The plot is tight, the performances moving. Ed Harris is an actor of considerable talent and breadth--you see it in this movie.

Rating:
Summary: Very Good Movie!
Review: The Third Miracle is a very absorbing and thought provoking film. It's unfortunate that films like this get overlooked by the masses. I guess people just don't want to be challenged, so they put their brains on auto pilot and go see "Road Trip" and the like. Don't get me wrong, I like fart jokes as much as the next guy, but those types of films should be balanced out with films like "The Third Miracle".

Rating:
Summary: Faith
Review: The Third Miracle is more than simple the story of the canonization or attempt at canonization of a possible saint. It is actually more than the petty stuggles associated with the process. It isn't really even about the person that they are considering for sainthood. This movie is about faith.

What strikes the viewer is the different sizes and shapes that faith comes in. Frank Shore is struggling with his own doubts. Does God exist? And if God does is God concerned with the likes of him. He wonders what role he has or should have in the process. He's not sure that he has the faith to be a parish priest let alone the brilliant apostalate that they all want him to be. In contrast John 's faith which Frank Shore is envious of, is built on some bedrock which must be a gift from the sustainer of the universe. The Bishop Cahill's faith seems to have been swallowed up by his aspirations to climb the liturgical ladder. He believes but what effect that faith has on his own life or the power he wields over others is ambiquous. His faith is perhaps faith in himself that he has the best of everyone in mind. There are other's whose faith is real but their arrogance suggests that they indeed know what God would do and how God would do it. They are willing to argue with the sustainer fo the universe were That God present in that room. And Frank asks, "Isn't God present right now in that room?" Then there are those with no faith. This movie isn't about the inconsistencies and pettiness that all people share the world over. Those interactions just make the movie real. To think that they are only the machinery of the Cathlic church would be naive. This Movie is worth seeing by anyone who wishes to examine and judge their own faith. Perhaps when they honestly do they will judge other's faith less harshly.

Rating:
Summary: The unsuspected healing properties of Group A blood
Review: THE THIRD MIRACLE opens with an Allied air raid on a Czech town late in WW II. The sequence focuses on a little girl praying as the bombs fall, and on a wounded German soldier who sees her and the pigeons.

Fast forward to 1979 in Chicago. Father Frank Shore, played by Ed Harris, is a Roman Catholic priest undergoing a crisis of faith regarding his God, his Church, and his role as a cleric. Yet, he's also the diocesan postulator, i.e. the priest who investigates the life of any individual being popularly acclaimed for sainthood, and who makes a subsequent recommendation (thumbs up or down) to the bishop preparatory to the possible involvement of Rome. Fr. Frank is known as "The Miracle Killer" for his previous work debunking potential sainthood. Thus, the bishop tasks him with scrutinizing the life of one Helen O'Regan, who is, after her death, being proclaimed a saint by the members of a local parish at which she worked. Ostensible evidence for her special relationship with the Lord is the blood that drips from the eyes of a parish statue of the Virgin Mary during November when it rains. (Helen died in November during a rainstorm.) One miracle has already been reported, the complete cure of a little girl with fatal lupus erythematosis, Maria Witkowski, after she comes into contact with the blood while praying to Helen at the foot of the statue.

This is more a story of Shore's search for renewed faith than that of O'Regan's possible eligibility for sainthood, though the latter serves as the vehicle for the former. Shore is desperate to revitalize his life, and seems ripe to do so with Helen's daughter Roxanne, vivaciously played by Anne Heche. The scene between the two on Helen's grave is positively effervescent. Will Frank compromise his priestly vow of celibacy?

As the probe into the reported miracle and Helen's life continues, Shore comes into conflict with Archbishop Werner, played by Armin Mueller-Stahl, an arrogant, contemptuous, German prelate who believes that America doesn't need another saint, or at least one whose elevation is predicated on such evidence as presented in the O'Regan case. Werner is a member of a tribunal sent by the Vatican to hear that evidence, during which process miracle #2 occurs, again involving Maria. Even then, Werner's adamant opposition is not softened.

All actors in this film are splendid, especially Ed Harris, whose Fr. Frank is likely to be an enormously sympathetic character, especially with Roman Catholics, who are well acquainted with priests, bishops, saints, and the concept of miracles. I would even go so far as to say that only a Catholic could appreciate this movie. Those of other faiths might consider it a fairy tale about superstitious nonsense. Be that as it may, the film's "gotcha" is the plot twist surrounding THE THIRD MIRACLE. For Catholics, the film is a must-see, along with those gems from the past, CATHOLICS and AGNES OF GOD. All three serve to remind that, in the Age of Science, Faith cannot be absent.

Rating:
Summary: A Haunting Film
Review: This is a haunting film, with excellent acting. Unfortunately and unfairly, it seems to have been generally neglected in its theatre release. Despite some awkwardness of cutting and a few cliches, it is outstanding. One reviewer suggested it is necessary to be Catholic to fully appreciate this film. Well, I'm Lutheran and I loved it.

Rating:
Summary: An Overlooked Movie
Review: Very smart movie which manages to simultaneously attack the Catholic church and hold it up for admiration. Watching this film I got the definite impression that the writer and possibly the director have a love/hate relationship with the grand old institution. The movie examines in depth the contradictary state of affairs in which the Catholic Church is an unofficial nation/goverment within an established nation, very much of this world, and at the same time a source of faith and inpiration to millions by following the investigation of possible miracles done in the name of a simple German woman who is now dead. In Ed Harris's character we witness the struggle between his desire to believe in god, the miracles , regaining his faith and his attraction to the dead woman's daughter. He's desperate to believe, but he wants also to have more from the physical world. All in all I have to give this movie high marks. It's suspenseful, thoughtful, intruiging, well acted and smartly directed. You care for the characters and those who are not as attractive you come to understand if not sympathise with. I didn't know what to expect when I rented this disc, but I gave it a chance and I'm glad I did. Give it a try. You also may be pleasently suprised.

Rating:
Summary: Faith Wrapped in Skepticism Shines with Terrific Performance
Review: When I received the DVD "The Third Miracle" as a gift, I thought it would be a nice old world type Church story. I assumed it was about the intriguing series of events implored by the stuffy Vatican to qualify a person for canonization to sainthood. Boy! I sure was wrong. The Third Miracle is a magnificent story supported by terrific performances by Ed Harris and Ann Heche. It's a story about the power of faith in the face of skepticism. This film should be re-released at this time when the Roman Catholic Church is facing its sins of obstruction of justice. The Third Miracle takes a brilliant look at human nature as the priest known as "Frank" tries to pull sanctity out of a story about miracles, tales as old as the Roman Catholic Church itself. Instead of overzealous sanctity, the story actually leads Frank further down a road towards a religious crisis, as he harbors doubts about his faith and why he was called to be a priest. There's enough drama, sexual tension and mystery in The Third Miracle to interest anyone who likes a good movie, religious themes notwithstanding. Most enjoyable is Harris, whose performance as honest priest "Frank", a man of the people, is inspiring despite the tortured spirits he harbors. Frank makes a Roman Catholic, like me, ask why more clergy don't recommend this film as required viewing? The Third Miracle leaves you yearning to know more about Frank in a sequel. We need more Father Frank's in our lives - skepticism included.

Rating:
Summary: VERY, VERY WEIRD!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: You would have to be VERY OFFISDE to enjoy this movie!!!! I turned it off after 20 minutes.
Don't waste your time or money on this.