Begins with a funeral, then a pastoral call to the decedent's surviving spouse, played by Clint Eastwood, who tells the earnest young priest that he (the priest) is nothing but a 27-year-old virgin who enjoys holding hands with the old ladies to whom he promises eternity. But the priest continues paying visits to the old man, who is meanwhile implausibly playing a dirty-Harry-like part in his gang-plagued neighborhood. In the end, the priest wins, and the Eastwood character, speaking of "light" and haloed by gunfire, gives up his life in an act of self-sacrifice. Then there is another funeral, the same priest officiating, a nice circle of pious sentiment.
The movie succeeds mainly as an answer to the charge that Hollywood is hostile to religion.
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