The Pope’s Exorcist
In his original review of “The Exorcist” from 1973, Roger Ebert wrote about “the absolute rightness” of casting the older priest who battles evil opposite the demonically possessed child with Max von Sydow, a great character actor. “He has been through so many religious and metaphysical crises in Ingmar Bergman’s films that he almost seems to belong on a theological battlefield the way John Wayne belonged on a horse.”
“The Pope’s Exorcist,” somewhat combines those two images by casting Russell Crowe as Father Gabriele Amorth, one of THE theologians and journalists and book authors designated by the pope as an exorcist. Amorth is written and performed as one of those wry, hard-bitten bad-asses who used to be played in 1960s Westerns by aging but still popular action stars like Burt Lancaster or Kirk Douglas or (yes) John Wayne, pointing out the hypocrisies of so-called civilization but defending it anyway they’d seen it all, but could still be shocked. He’s sly and tough and wisecracking, he approaches each new mission like a gunslinger approaches his next duel.
Only instead of pistols, rifles and hunting knives, he has an exorcism kit with crucifixes and holy water that he carries around in a case the size of a saddlebag; his horse is a red and white scooter that’s too small for Crowe’s let it all hang out character actor body but makes a perfect sight gag for that reason. (Amorth even has a tiny whiskey flask that he insists I carry will ease his scratchy throat.)
And directed by Julius Avery (“Overlord”) and very loosely inspired by an actual priest whose story was told in the documentary by William Friedkin the film follows Amorth to a decrepit abbey in rural Spain where he goes to drive a demon from the body of a young boy.
It has been marketed as a horror film, but it’s more busy and impatient than creepy and scary, especially when it’s cross cutting between parallel lines of action happening in the abbey and back at the Vatican (where Franco Nero plays the pope who knows there’s more going on than a garden variety possession).
Ultimately, it’s a theological action flick with overtones of an old-fashioned Western about an aging gunslinger who teams up with an earnest but untested younger partner (Daniel Zovatto’s Father Esquibel) to save women and children from a monstrous enemy.
The opening of this movie is the most interesting part. What happens is an appetizer exorcism. Amorth trash talks evil and pokes its pride until it’s dumb enough to destroy itself. It’s one of those scenes that almost gets you excited about meeting a character who seems truly original and infinitely franchisable like James Bond in an inside-out collar, or a theological cousin of Detective Columbo, whose disheveled appearance and strange mannerisms cause suspects to underestimate him. The whole thing even ends with a postscript that suggests Amorth is being recruited for some kind of Exorcist Avengers Initiative, the producers missed an easy applause break by not closing on a title card reading “FATHER AMORTH WILL RETURN.”
Unfortunately (for them), “The Pope’s Exorcist” is just another watchable but unexceptional exorcism movie retread, studded with Vatican conspiracy theories that have been half-assedly cross wired to church atrocities and scandals via what feels like four different Dan Brown novels. The punchline is so dumb and convoluted it almost lets the Church off for the Inquisition and pedophilia cover-up by way of saying “the devil made them do it.”
This movie’s worth seeing for Crowe alone, though. He does Amorth as a vainglorious cut up who greets vile taunts with a leer and snappy comebacks; when the demon growls that he’s his worst nightmare, he rejoins “My worst nightmare is France winning the World Cup.” Crowe plays every last drop of dry, needling wit in this character just right, he’s even more endearing when he lets us glimpse insecurities that Amorth keeps hidden under his vestments. When Father Esquibel tells him he read his articles about possession in magazines, Amorth mumbles (because apparently this guy also writes books), “The books are good.” Avery cuts to traveling shots of Amorth scootering down the highway and country roads, frock, collar, fedora, and shades giving him an iconic/ridiculous-cool look: The character is a joke but he’s played as a deadpan lark.
This is one of those movies where you could see yourself rewatching chunks just to watch Crowe and his co-stars bask in their awed reactions to what he’s doing. He’s been so good for so long that he kind of glides through this role with nothing left to prove (although the character does). He goofs off and adds little moves and reads that juice up any given shot. But he never goes so far as to actively mock the movie. When Amorth reveals his own spiritual torment via a series of flashbacks, Crowe writhes like he’s suffering inside an Ingmar Bergman movie. He seems at roughly the same point Newman was in the early ’70s when his hair went silver and all vanity fled: not suffering for his art anymore, even when it’s serious, it’s still just a kick.
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