Supposedly based on the personal accounts of Gabriele Amorth, the biggest draw here is Russell Crowe playing a hard-drinking, demon-taunting, vespa riding, mean mofo-ing servant of god. He is a riot, infusing his performance with humor and charisma and obviously having a hoot in this role. His dry humor and line delivery makes the film far more entertaining than it deserves, despite mining a wealth of source material the filmmakers are clearly aspiring to franchise. Beyond these elements, the film is a predictable amalgam of catholic exorcism plots, the usual sampler of jump-scares, sinister whispers, creepy locales and tests of faith skewing towards spectacle with a bombastic final act. There is so little room to maneuver within this overplayed sub-genre, filmmakers are forced to go bigger, louder and more explosive with each iteration. The ‘based on true events’ selling point certainly stretches credulity into the lands of the absurd, akin to a supernatural comic book film, but the characters are decently developed, the pacing brisk, and the film rarely bores. It is often darkly funny, sometimes seemingly a satire of the genre conventions, but unfortunately there are little to no genuine scares to be found. Only a couple of jump moments with some good use of creepy atmosphere and great locations. Slightly troubling is this film’s glossing over and justifying some of the Church’s more egregious sins, with a hand-waving ‘demons did it’ as part of an overarching intent to establish a grander occult conspiracy and retaking holy sites in future films. The script also suffers from having developed an absurdly powerful global threat, but resolves the conflict through the usual smorgasbord of latin prayers and personal conviction. On the whole, this is an extremely average and derivative film, the unfortunate lack of scares balanced by its dark sense of humor and some quality direction. Hopefully the groundwork laid for some ambitious sequels can include more horror elements.
The Pope's Exorcist