Doubt is a powerful drama about a clash of culture at a sixties Catholic church in the Bronx. Hoffman plays a jovial and charismatic priest who preaches and teaches hand in hand with the wave of modernity running through the country, pushing the fear-based methods out the door. However, when one of his students claims Flynn is too close to one of the students, causing old-fashioned principal Sister Aloyius Beauvier to step in and challenge Father Flynn, despite the total lack of evidence against him. In a weird way, Hoffman's performance is reminiscent of a much more serious take on the gimmicky community centre leader seen in so many cheesy eighties movies. He is emotive and stirring, and you desperately want to find out whether he is actually guilty or not, as the relief you'll feel if he's cleared would be huge, but we'd be devastated if he was guilty. Hoffman earned a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role, and was pretty unlucky to have gone up against the phenomenon that was Heath Ledger's The Joker that year, or he could have easily taken the accolade.
