I'd heard of Stone, or rather who was headlining the movie, before I ever knew what the movie was about, which might have been a good thing. The flick plays out like a sexual thriller—a story about a man who seems destined to fall into the trap, the manipulation—but it turns out to be more about the moral compass that defines us, whether or not we can distinguish who we are in the midst of conflict and dealing with our own personal demons.

Jack Mabry (De Niro) stars as a parole officer working through the last cases before retirement, and Gerald "Stone" Creeson (Norton) is the arsonist bent on being released from prison who needs Mabry's signature to attain that. Between them stands Resident Evil's Milla Jovovich as Lucetta Creeson, the "honeypot" in question, whom Stone manipulates as a tool against the will and mind of Mabry.

Throughout the flick, Mabry and Stone duel over the means by which a person can change, or be right in the world, through Mabry's Episcopalian upbringing and practice versus Stone's newfound Zukangor. (As an aside, I'm not sure why it was specifically Episcopalian unless that relates to the writer/director, but Zukangor, from everything I can find, is a made-up religion). What I do know is that Mabry appears to be searching for peace and healing, but he's not sure how to find it, and his priest, rather unsatisfactorily, merely tells him that God speaks in mysterious ways. I don't want to belabor the point, but before all hell breaks loose in Mabry's life, there is that "cry for help," and he is bailed on by the ecclesiastical authority.

Let's be real for a minute: this is not a good guy versus bad guy thriller. Mabry is flawed: he's unloving toward his life, he obviously is open to sexual fantasy, and his depression/neediness is exhibited from the very beginning. He's complex, and not in ways that one would immediately find redeemable! Stone is more obviously flawed by the world's standards, given murder and arson on his ticket, but he's obviously searching for something true to hold onto as well. If we hold onto a "hierarchy of sin" model, we might fool ourselves into seeing one as worse than the other, but they are in fact both men who are "in sin," only Stone is proving that Mabry isn't as far away from him as he thinks. Stone appears to be more able to change while Mabry can't gain traction, even believe that change is possible maybe, and his transformation occurs parallel to Mabry's own path.

After the "struggle," Mabry's inability to pray, his aversion to hearing the Bible read, make for interesting testaments to the way that sin pulls us down. "All of our righteousness are as filthy rags," intones the radio evangelist, quoting Isaiah, and reminding Mabry that while he might have held onto "standards" for so long, his actions and predisposition were aimed at falling into the same crevices as Stone. And that "crevice" is Lucetta, who may at first appear to be pure but turns out to be the most morally void of the three of them. In a way, I found myself thinking about Jesus' parable about how "two men went up to the Temple to pray," the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, one who thought he was everything God wanted and the other who thought he had nothing God could want... and both get "changed" by their prayers.

In the end, the movie will leave you scratching your head, and that seems to be the point. Who rises, who falls, who is transformed, and who experiences the tragedy that has been trailing them for years? Angus MacLachlan's play-turned-movie has similar "what is the truth" elements to Doubt, only grittier, more in-your-face, and more morally ambiguous.

Don't watch it if you're not ready for some self-examination on your own.