Heath Ledger plays Alex, a conflicted Carolingen priest who still says Mass in Latin. He is dispatched by Cardinal Driscoll of New York (Peter Weller) to Rome to investigate the death of his mentor, Father Dominic. Accompanying him is Mara, (Shannyn Sossamon), a suicidal psychic with whom Alex shares a troubled past. They team up with Alex's buddy, a burly Irish priest, Father Thomas (Mark Addy). These renegades operate in the shadowy underground of the Eternal City, fearing nothing, not even Church hierarchy, in their perilous determination to locate William Eden (German actor Benno Furmann): a.k.a.: The Other. Once found, this weary 600 year-old Sin Eater intones pithy mumbo-jumbo like, "Knowledge is the enemy of faith."

There's nothing suspenseful, shocking or scary about what happens, particularly since Nicola Pecorini's cinematography is cloaked in shadows. And if the trio of protagonists looks familiar, Brian Helgeland previously teamed Ledger, Sossamon and Addy in "A Knight's Tale." On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "The Order" is a dark, tedious 2. It's a murky cinematic mess.