On B List of Movie Reviews

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The Boys of St. Vincent (1992)

Rate: 9
Viewed: 2/21

2/21: Pretty much the film to foretell what's to come, The Boys of St. Vincent highlights the cover-up of child sexual abuse at the hands of priests and their leaders.

It's not only the Catholic Church but every religion denomination that's part of the problem. The setting may be Newfoundland, Canada, but it has happened all over the world for centuries. Even the nuns have done it. Church leaders and government officials knew all about the child sexual abuse that went on but did nothing because the bottom line was money and power. By the time they started to, it's too late.

Monetary settlement has been the common end result to make these cases go away, but the damage is forever on both sides including a steep decline in attendance and religious faith. For the most part, church leaders have steadfastly refused to acknowledge what happened. Back then, to take care of it, they would transfer priests, who were often uneducated, to different schools and monasteries around the country and use religion to deflect the blame.

I loved the villainy shown by Henry Czerny's characters in Clear and Present Danger and Mission: Impossible, but he's pure evil as Brother Peter Lavin. Because of him, some of the scenes are difficult to watch. At the same time, great performances are rendered by everybody in the cast, but Johnny Morina stands out the most as Kevin Reevey.

All in all, disturbing or not, The Boys of St. Vincent makes for an excellent viewing of why there's zero reason for children to be sexually abused and for adults of any profession to hold an inviolable right to the assumption of being above reproach.

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