Dan Brown’s bestselling The Da Vinci Code popularized, in discussion if not belief, the theory that Jesus Christ escaped his crucifixion, married Mary Magdalene, and had a child, and that the Catholic Church and others have engaged in a conspiracy to suppress this fact. The ample, worldwide commercial shadow of that book and its subsequent film adaptation provide the necessary cover for mushroom cinema like this documentary, which includes interviews with a mysterious, finger-tenting, alleged Priory of Sion member and investigates archaeological proof of said theory in southwest France via amateur English adventurer Ben Hammott.

Directed by Bruce Burgess — whose other credits, it turns out, include movies about Bigfoot, the Ark of the Covenant, and the Bermuda Triangle — Bloodline is unfortunately the type of film that confuses investment of time with insight and evidence. Burgess’s refusal to put Hammott and his many discoveries through the wringer (despite, say, the mostly empty bottle of vodka lingering in the corner of a frame during one morning interview) at first comes across as curious and then just increasingly negligent, finally culminating in a passage which confirms a piece of Hammott’s evidence using … other pieces of Hammott’s own evidence. It’s shoddy filmmaking like this — no matter the high inherent intrigue factor here, especially for docu-philes — that makes Bloodline ridiculous, no matter how much one may want to believe what it’s peddling. For the original review, from CityBeat, click here. (Cinema Libre, unrated, 118 minutes)