aggie O'Connor (Basinger) doesn't believe in God, Satan and "all that stuff." This modern-day skepticism puts her in a poor position to deal with the supernatural vortex that takes over her life when her junkie sister Jenna (Bettis) dumps a nine-day-old infant at her house and runs off. Maggie, an independent and apparently friendless divorcee (Jenna snidely theorizes that Maggie's husband left because she couldn't bear him children), dutifully raises the child, showering her with as much devotion and affection as the noticeably detached Basinger is capable of expressing on-screen. In front of doctors and teachers, the child, Cody (Coleman), displays behaviors symptomatic of autism; when no one but the audience is looking, she displays odd powers more symptomatic of telekinesis.
But spinning toys and no-hands snow globe activation are just the beginning of the supernatural abilities that are destined to lead millions to God when Cody grows up. Powerful cult leader Eric Stark (Sewell) is determined to prevent that, so he shows up with Jenna in tow and announces that it's time for Cody to return to her mother. Maggie flails and snivels a bit, but she's never taken formal custody of Cody, and she finds abruptly that she has no legal recourse when Jenna and Eric kidnap the child.
Maggie's one friend in the otherwise uninterested New York Police Department is FBI agent John Travis (Smits), who's been assigned to New York to investigate a series of gruesome child kidnap-murders. All the victims share Cody's birth date, and all have occult symbols burned into their mutilated corpses. Travis initially denies the connection between the serial killings and Cody's disappearance, which leads Maggie to scream at him, stomp out and try to save Cody on her own. Of course, she's up against a rich and powerful organization whose murder methodologies range from Satanist street gangs to black magic. Soon she's being menaced by remarkably ineffectual demons as well as by cult thugs in a limo. But Stark's cult never planned on facing the two primary weapons of a frustrated Hollywood mother: maternal instinct and the insane luck of a thriller protagonist.
Heavenly and hellish incompetence
There are basically only two things wrong with Bless the Child: the star and the script. The latter has Basinger doing inanely stupid things every 10 minutes, from stomping into Stark's headquarters alone to steal her child back (despite the phalanx of demons and aggressive toughs visibly guarding the place!) to repeatedly, deliberately antagonizing the only person who listens to her and offers to help her. The blundering screenplay isn't any kinder to its other participants. Sewell in particular makes a game effort at his cartoon-baddie part, but Stark keeps tripping himself up with mistakes almost as inept as Maggie's. (What kind of Satanist takes his hard-won human sacrifice on a routine trip to the dentist just before her ritual murder? Does Satan demand his victims have healthy gums?)
When Maggie does manage to move beyond sputtering self-righteousness, Basinger's brightly false, mannequin-like performance makes even her believable reactions seem unlikely. Her co-stars range from fairly decent (Smits, who's coasting on a sympathetic-cop role that must seem like second nature by now) to authentically impressive (Coleman, who is reasonably believable in a demanding role). But Basinger's Barbie-doll posturing drags the entire film down to ruin.
There are a few chills in Bless the Child, once Basinger gets off-screen and Sewell is left alone for a few low-key confrontations with Coleman. But for every quiet face-off between the avatars of God and Satan, there are half a dozen noisy, sloppy car chases, cheap corpse effects, artificial-looking digital miracles or overdone special effects, including hordes of rubbery-looking computer-generated rats and flocks of Muppety-looking computer-generated demons.
Director Chuck Russell (Eraser, The Mask) handles the horror by the book, pouring on the usual cinematic tricks--whispery voices in the background, sudden loud music or sharp noises to make the audience jump, garish lighting to indicate Sewell's use of magic, and so on. It's a lost cause. The biggest surprise in Bless the Child is Ian Holm's brief appearance as a Jesuit priest who momentarily evokes the voice-of-reason characters in better thrillers like Seven. His cameo serves as a reminder--there are good actors out there, and good films. This isn't one.
