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	Deliver US from Evil By Jim Schembri The Age [Australia] May 3, 2007 http://www.theage.com.au/news/film-reviews/deliver-us-from-evil/2007/05/03/1177788273302.html This chilling, methodical, must-see documentary offers an unnerving insight into just how blase a person can be about the darkness of his own soul. Genre: Documentary Run Time: 101 minutes Rated: MA 15+ Country: United States Director: Amy Berg Rating: stars-4half In chronicling the wanton child sexual abuse conducted by a Catholic priest over two decades in California, this chilling, methodical, must-see documentary offers an unnerving insight into just how blase a person can be about the darkness of his own soul. What makes the film uniquely unsettling is that the heinous perpetrator, Oliver O'Grady, is front-and-centre much of the time, a willing participant happy to talk at length and in shocking detail about what he did and who he hurt. Director Amy Berg, a veteran news producer for CBS and CNN, does not need to coax O'Grady. Speaking in dulcet tones, he chats freely, even cheerily, about his pedophilia as though the film were a confessional through which he could absolve himself of the damage he has caused. And Berg spotlights the damage with jaw-dropping force, interviewing the victims and their parents about the unending torture of having to live with the consequences of O'Grady's rapes. In one powerful sequence, the father of a victim explodes with rage about the cold calculation with which O'Grady betrayed his family's trust in priests. Complicit in his crimes the church which effectively sanctioned O'Grady's abuse by moving him from parish to parish rather than making him face justice. Berg is intent on laying bare the church's culture of protection, denial and excuse-making, pointing to a pandemic of pedophilia within its ranks. Through damning footage of court proceedings she draws out the hypocrisy and moral cowardice of church bureaucracy, which seemed hell-bent on putting the interests of its priest before its parishioners. Most disturbing of all is how O'Grady casts himself as a victim. He believes himself to be a good-hearted man with unfortunate urges who simply strayed from the path. Given the torrent of anger and fury so vividly captured here, it is the cool manner in which O'Grady continually soft-pedals his behaviour that is most incendiary. His casual mea culpa attitude and gentle pleas for forgiveness from those he defiled demonstrates how the very worst of monsters often come bearing kind words and warm smiles.
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