The Reckoning

A touring troupe of actors in 1380 come to a village where a deaf-mute woman is about to be hanged for murder. They begin to suspect she is innocent. The movie is well done, and reminds one a little of Hamlet (“The play’s the thing, wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king!”), and a little like Agatha Christie where Poirot gets everybody together to explain the murder, and something like CSI: The Dark Ages. People are always saying things like “Aha! Rigor mortis has not yet set in!” and “Bite marks on the body!” and “A swelling under his arm! The plague! The plague!” Not that this is bad, but I kept expecting David Caruso to show up and start spraying everything with luminol. It got a little operatic at the end, but overall we enjoyed it.