The premise of “The Order” seems to reflect the look of star Heath Ledger — he looks tired and out of his element.

Ledger stars as Alex Bernier, a member of a mysterious order of holy men involved in exorcisms and fighting evil. When the head of his order unexplainably dies, he is sent to Rome to investigate his death.

The body is scarred by the marks of the Sin Eater, a man who performs last rites and rids bodies of sins before their death, sending them to heaven without God’s approval.

Alex enlists the help of another priest, Mark Addy, and is visited, quite awkwardly, by a woman, Mara, played by Shannyn Sossamon, whom he once performed an exorcism upon.

In between condemning evil spirits to Hades (in one scene, he exorcises two demons and responds in heroic glory, “Nothin’ I couldn’t handle” to his confidant), romance blooms between the two poster celebs and Alex renounces his priesthood, all within the first hour.

Perhaps the brains behind this film forgot that “Mystery Science Theater 3000” was canceled years too early. Come on, these guys are hunting down someone who goes by “Sin Eater.”

The film is written, produced and directed by Brian Helgeland, a person with as many hits as misses credited to his name. He co-wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay of “L.A. Confidential” but was also responsible for the bombastic screenplay to Kevin Costner’s “The Postman.”

“The Order” qualifies as a triple-threat to Helgeland’s career — his production values are sloppy, his direction is muddled and his script is laughable and undistinguished.

Problems are more apparent in front of the camera, mostly with the unconvincing performances by Ledger and Sossamon. Neither character presents a personality or livelihood on screen, and why would they? The don’t have anything to do.

This is a hard movie to comment on because its awfulness has made me speechless. Rather than speculate on the problems in front of and behind the camera, the argument is how it got made in the first place.

To my knowledge, nobody was itching for a sequel to “Stigmata,” and the special effects look like the characters are being attacked by spaghetti.

“The Order” is a movie where I walked out afterwards and tried to remember what had exactly happened.

I’ve decided this is a good idea stuck inside of an hour and 40 minutes of giant misdirection. Someone has yet to figure out that Helgeland’s forte is writing, because he can usually write pretty good stuff when it’s not unintentional comedy. In those terms, he’s an even more talented filmmaker. This is a terrible movie that has bitten off more than it can chew. It tackles the religious thriller genre and tries to pass it off as an action-romance-comedy, failing on all counts.

Someone should just point out “The Order” was nothing more of a reunion between co-stars Ledger, Sossamon, Addy and their director, who all worked together on “A Knight’s Tale.” Then, at the very least, the excuse of “I told them I’d point and shoot — they do whatever” would have worked.