review for Beyond Redemption on AllMovie

Give Andrew McCarthy credit for trying a role other than a clean-cut, charming yuppie; this time out he dons the greasy suits that Brad Pitt wore in trying to solve a similarly gruesome series of crimes in the far superior Seven. But instead of a script that intensifies the early intrigue, McCarthy is faced with a story that softens as it goes along. It takes a considerable amount of cinematic skill by the writer, director, and film editor to keep the heat on in a thriller -- which, no doubt, is why there are so many lame thrillers -- but director Chris Angel gets sidetracked by the maudlin aspects of the young-daughter-in-peril subplot, mistakenly assuming the "Good God versus Bad God" allegory will connect the parallel stories and ratchet it up a level. But when a movie comes down to a typical "you'll never take me" hostage situation at the altar of a church, wherein the villain wields a crucifix as a hand weapon, then something's been lost somewhere along the line. The killer, by the way, is so obvious for so long that viewers may wish they could send McCarthy an e-mail to help him figure it out.