Richard Burton is in excellent form here as a priest with a dark streak who plays favorites with the boys he teaches. He's especially unkind to one with a leg brace, but the real intrigue is in his more than friendly interest in a free-spirited athlete. After Burton gives an ultimatum that the boy no longer see a suspicious drifter, the boy gets even by giving a false confession that he's willingly committed homosexual acts. Burton's at his best here, at once furious about and interested in the boy's sordid private life.
Unfortunately, the third act gets sloppy. Though Absolution gets all the more mean-spirited and demented, easy to relish for its shock value, the melodrama is plainly overstated. At times, it remains a rather honest depiction of youthful cruelty. Yet Anthony Shaffer's clumsy stage play wins out with an ending that's downright stupid.
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