My Review of The Healer (2016)

 

Written And Directed by Paco Arango

Alec: "There seems to be a mistake here. I fix electrical things."

I don't see myself as a particularly religious person and I certainly hold a level of scepticism for faith healers, so the premise of this movie did raise eyebrows. It's a bit on the supernatural side and a lot on the Hallmark one too, even with the bouts of mild swearing in it.

Our "healer" as such was a promiscuous lad about town named Alec Bailey (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). Despite being a seemingly talented mechanical engineer, he's mostly bedding other people's wives and amassing debts for horribly written Russian mobsters, who are too inept to actually catch him.

Then there's a mystery uncle named Raymond (Jonathan Pryce) who offered to pay all of Alec's debts if he relocated to Nova Scotia for a whole year. Alec grudgingly took the offer in spite of his irritation of being compared poorly to his deceased twin, Charlie.

Winding up in the type of small town that you'd see in every Hallmark movie ever, Alec made friends with local vet Cecelia (Camilla Luddington). There's a god awful subplot where she pretended to be a lesbian that was poorly designed to delay the inevitable hooking up with her and Alec. This movie would've benefitted from Cecelia actually being a lesbian and making this movie less vanilla.

Anyways when Alec wasn't getting arrested by the overzealous Tom (Adrian G. Griffiths) or nearly causing the death of Father Molloy (Jorge Garcia), it turned out that he actually could heal people. Something involving family lineage that skips a generation and something that Alec rejected until he came into contact with cancer patient Abigail (Kaitlyn Bernard).

Yes, this movie needed a gutsy teenager to tell the adults they were being silly but mostly her purpose was to get Alec to accept his destiny as a healer. By the end of the movie, he pretty much did, so mission accomplished.

- There's an overlong tribute to Paul Newman at the end of this movie. 

- Dead twin Charlie did briefly pop up in one dream sequence that Alec had. 

- For a movie that was a bit too straight for my tastes, I did like the use of George Michael's Faith.

- Chronology: Started in London, majority took place in Nova Scotia and Alec's 30th birthday was what activated his powers.

Not my usual type of movie and definitely way too much in the Hallmark vein. The Healer does feel well intentioned, albeit rather misguided in its approach to the topic at hand. The romance plot also felt unwarranted too. 

Rating: 5 out of 10