This movie is somewhat hard to watch because it is slow-paced and low-budget, but the great acting by Richard Burton and the others make up for this. More importantly, it brings up a unique set of issues that other movies do not, at least not in one single movie. The effects of Father Goddard's favoritism towards apple-polishing Benji at the expense of the more intelligent Dyson. The homoerotic dynamics between Goddard/Benji, Blakey/Benji, Goddard/Dyson, and basically everyone, and the sadism of Benji towards the masochist Dyson (who ultimately is more clever). The biggest issue, more important now than ever, is how crimes can be hidden within the Catholic church which sees itself as above the law and above family/friendship, and well- meaning priests will perpetuate this, because they are inculcated that this is their highest duty. This simple yet extremely intelligent movie shows how the Catholic church can be rendered impotent to protect people because (in theory) its priests are sworn to secrecy, and may not appeal to secular police.

I came upon this movie after it had already begun. I couldn't find the programme listing - so was completely 'at sea' as to the genre and mode for a time. Now, having read others' comments I can offer a different slant. My 'start' was around the time when two priests were talking, and referring to (Dyson?) needing extra care as he was vulnerable - and shortly after Benji pressuring Fr Goddard to hear his confession in the priest's study (usually a no-no) regarding his meetings with the seriously weird Billy Connolly character and his voluptuous lady. For a time I felt there was a Hitchcock-like parody running - the sound-track music seeming to be bordering on comic-horror. Viewing with today's (2009) sensibilities had me wondering if we were going to be traveling to the dire domain of sexual abuse so much a feature of recent RC 'outings' in real life, and for me for a time then added to serious tension. Of course there was no such sub-plot; Goddard was a 'true-blue' pre-Vatican II priest - a desperate "keep me constant Lord - keep me constant!" his prayer in times of dire temptation to stgrike back at his tormentor/s.I had never heard of this film - but was lured to stick with it because of Richard Burton - granite-like and deeply troubled from the first take. The plot twists were rather tortuous, and I didn't pick up the impersonation going on in the confessional, so was greatly caught up in the last plot movements.I agree with commentators that some of the filming tricks struck exactly the right note. The sequences in the woods were seriously spooky with their blurred shadowy nuances of being followed.The colouration plan was obviously meant to be monochromatic with only 'splash' instances of colour? i.e. inside the school and the character's hair and skin tones are quite black/white - with the priestly stole singularly purple, and outside of course, green was truly green.I rate this movie much more highly than most. At the very least it is of distinctive genre, keeps you viewing (past the small hours) and displays the legendary Burton still able to strut his thespian stuff with the best of them.

Not only is Absolution a hard movie to find, but it also very slow moving. The acting is great and the story is great, but the director could have tried something to liven it up. All script writing books will tell you to put the first action and get the ball rolling about ten to fifteen minutes into the film, whereas in the case of Absoution, you go about halfway through the movie and realize the plot started half an hour before.Absolution focuses on two students in a catholic school, one named Benji (Dominic Guard) and one Dyson (David Bradley). Benji is the golden boy of the school who is good at everything from sports to class, Dyson on the other hand is crippled and not too good at anything. When Father Goddard (Richard Burton) hears Benji's confession that he killed a homeless drifter named Blakey (Billy Connoly) then investigates only to find a buried scarecrow he doesn't take the next report of Blakey's murder very seriously, but this time discovers Blakey's corpse. When Goddard receives another confession that Benji has killed Dyson, he drives himself mad looking for the body until finally killing Benji, only to discover that Dyson, jealous of Benji's abilities and the favoritism shown to Dyson by Goddard, had been impersonating Benji in the confessions.also I believe that Richard Burton's performance was great but you can't overlook Billy Connoly who is a great comedian and great actor of any genre.

I don't think anyone can really like this movie. It doesn't do things in a different strange way which is good. But the movie is just so boring, and you are waiting for it to be over. The acting really isn't that bad, but you don't care about that when your watching it. I give it a 1 1/2 out of 5.