Hilary Swank must be content with her two Oscars; she certainly isn't trying for a third with the supernatural thriller The Reaping. Swank plays Katherine Winter, an erstwhile Christian missionary and current skeptical scientist. Winter has investigated dozens of miracles, and she has found dozens of scientific explanations for them. But her obsession with disproving the existence of God falls short when the small Louisiana town of Haven calls on her expertise to explain the local occurrence of Biblical plagues.
Whatever potential The Reaping might have had in examining religious themes is lost in the movie's preoccupation with forcing the contrived plot toward a surprise ending --- but the viewer's interest in the weak plot doesn't hold up until the end. In terms of the 10 plagues gimmick, a more accurate description of the premise would be three over-the-top plagues and seven half-assed special effects sequences. (When did barbecued chicken covered in maggots or a dozen dead frogs ever qualify as a plague?) The movie relies on neatly-spaced jump moments to create suspense, and the disorienting cinematography uses frequent quick cuts to mask the fact that nothing truly scary or coherent is happening on screen. When Winter finally does receive an explanation for the 10 plagues, she exclaims that it's "convoluted, contradictory and nonsensical." My thoughts exactly.
