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	Sins of the 'Fathers': Showtime Film Spotlights Boston's Priest Sexual Abuse Scandal By Sarah Rodman Boston Herald [Boston MA] May 19, 2005 If your heart hasn't already been broken by the priest sex abuse scandal, then Showtime's strong film "Our Fathers" will finish the job. Based on Newsweek editor David France's book "Our Fathers: The Secret Life of the Catholic Church in an Age of Scandal," the two-hour film, airing Saturday at 8 p.m., tells the now well-known story of the cover-up of predatory Catholic priests shuffled from parish to parish in the Boston diocese, leaving scores of damaged children in their wake. Any tragedy is tough to turn into "entertainment," but this one is particularly difficult - especially for local viewers. Fortunately, director Dan Curtis and a strong cast manage to avoid playing this as a seedy, exploitative movie of the week. (Curtis did similarly sober work during the Holocaust portion of his miniseries "War and Remembrance.") Much as the Hub-centered "A Civil Action" did, "Our Fathers" uses as its entry point a lawyer who fought on behalf of the victims, in this case, Mitchell Garabedian (Ted Danson). (Unlike "Action," the Showtime film was shot in Canada.) It then weaves in the voices of the victims, an outraged priest (Brian Dennehy) and Cardinal Law (Christopher Plummer). Danson and Dennehy do typically solid work in their roles, but it is Plummer as the conflicted and enigmatic Law and a stunningly affecting Daniel Baldwin as one of the victims who raise the film to the proper level of horror. Plummer nails Law's maddening mix of fear, obfuscation and sincere contrition in scenes with his counselors, the Pope and a victim who confronts him in his home. Baldwin is a revelation as a haggard, haunted man trying to keep the painful memories and rage from further derailing his adult life. There are a few wan stabs at humor and some use of shopworn genre cliches - Garabedian, for instance, is not as caffeinated and vulgar as Danson's ambulance chaser turned hero - that induce a few cringes, and the Boston accents are inconsistent. While it's horribly unfortunate that there is a story to tell, "Our Fathers" does so with compassion and without ambiguity. "Our Fathers." Saturday at 8 p.m. on Showtime. Three stars (out of four).