THE POPE'S EXORCIST : Tuesday 18th April 2023.

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'THE POPE'S EXORCIST' earlier this week at my local independent movie theatre, and this American supernatural horror film is Directed by Julius Avery whose previous feature film credits are 'Son of a Gun' in 2014, 'Overlord' in 2018 and 'Samaritan' in 2022. This film is based on the Italian Catholic Priest and Exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth of the Diocese of Rome, who lived from 1925 until 2016, and who claimed to have performed thousands of exorcisms throughout his life, as recounted in his memoirs 'An Exorcist Tells His Story' and 'An Exorcist : More Stories'. The film cost US$18M to produce, has so far brought in US$38M at the global Box Office, has generated mixed or average reviews and was released first in India earlier this month and then in the US and here in Australia last week.

The film opens up in mid-1987 and Father Gabriele Amorth (Russell Crowe), acting as the Pope's personal Exorcist pulls up at an Italian village on his Lambretta scooter where a man is allegedly possessed by a demon. With the help of a local priest, Amorth enters the room where the man is tied up, shouting obscenities in English although he has never uttered a word of English in his life up to this point. While exorcising the man, using a Saint Benedict sacramental Medal, Amorth drives the demon into a pig, which is then killed with a shotgun, leaving the man in a crumpled heap on the bed seemingly to recover.

This 'exorcism' gets Amorth into some seemingly serious trouble with a Church tribunal, since he acted without permission from his superiors. One tribunal member is a friendly African bishop, Lumumba (Cornell John), but another is an overly zealous American cardinal, Sullivan (Ryan O'Grady) who is skeptical of demonic possession, and readily discounts all of Amorth's counter arguments. Amorth replies that evil does exist, and that he did not perform a true exorcism, but instead, some psychological theatre to help the mentally-disturbed man. Amorth goes on to explain that 98% of cases can be attributed to mental or scientific reasons, but the remaining 2% are down to pure evil. However. disgusted by the accusations made by the panel before him, he walks out of the tribunal hearing.

The Pope assigns Amorth to visit a possessed boy named Henry (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney) in Spain. Henry, his mother Julia (Alex Essoe), and his rebellious teenage sister Amy (Laurel Marsden) had traveled from America to take possession of a mysterious old Spanish abbey which was Henry's father's sole bequest to his family after he died tragically in a car accident in which Henry was present in the back seat, and saw his father impaled. The traumatised Henry has not spoken since the accident, which was one year ago now. The group of workmen, who were restoring the abbey so the family could sell it, leave after a mysterious fire breaks out in the basement. Hereafter, Henry starts behaving bizarrely and self-harms. His mother takes him to a local hospital but various blood tests and MRI scans show nothing to be out of the ordinary.

Henry, mercilessly possessed, requests a priest, and when the local Father Esquibel (Daniel Zovatto) arrives, Henry obscenely chastises him and sends him hurtling through the air to come crashing down against a cupboard and saying 'wrong priest'. Amorth arrives and with no alternative, enlists Esquibel as his assistant, though Esquibel is untrained as an exorcist. Amorth states the importance of prayer and staying the course despite the distractions that Henry might throw his way. However, Esquibel makes several mistakes as an assistant exorcist, including attempting to strangle Henry when he derides him, and mocks him for his sins.

The pair attempt to exorcise Henry, without success, as he utters blasphemous rantings throughout the ritual. Furthermore, without the demon's name, their attempts prove futile. Amorth finds Julia has not been a religious believer since childhood, but he convinces her to pray after she reveals she believed a guardian angel was always by her side during her early school years.

Meanwhile, back in Rome, the Pope (Franco Nero) becomes gravely ill while reading documents about the Spanish case, and is rushed into hospital. Amorth locates a well on the abbey grounds going down to an underground cavern sealed off by the Church as being demonically dangerous. He learns that a founder of the Spanish Inquisition, an exorcist, was possessed, which let him infiltrate the Church and in turn conduct much evil. Amorth also discovers that the Church covered this up centuries ago, and eventually learns the name of Henry's demon, Asmodeus, which will help with the exorcism.

Amorth and Esquibel participate in a Confession and Absolution, mutually confessing, and absolving each other of their sins - with Amorth, an Italian partisan, who survived World War II and vowed to serve God in gratitude, when later a mentally-ill woman asked for Amorth's help, and subsequently died by suicide when he did not help her due to pride, with Esquibel fornicating with a young woman he later abandoned. The two prepare themselves and Amorth instructs Esquibel to wear a Miraculous Medal necklace. During the exorcism, they are tormented by visions of the women whom they failed. The exorcism succeeds only when Amorth offers himself to be possessed, which coincides with Asmodeus's earlier stating that he wants to destroy Amorth.

Amorth attempts to hang himself, but Asmodeus doesn't allow it, preferring that Amorth infiltrate and destroy the Church from within. However, Esquibel helps Amorth drive away the demon that emerges from a well as the Blessed Virgin Mary elevating before him, as well as the demonic manifestations of the two women who so troubled the men. The Pope makes a full recovery, as does Henry who has returned to the USA with his mother and sister. The triumphant pair visit Rome, and find Sullivan has taken extended leave in Guam, being replaced by Lumumba. Amorth and Esquibel are escorted to a special Church archive with many of the relics recovered from the cavern. Lumumba tells Amorth that he will be visiting 199 other evil sites, depicted on a world map Amorth discovered at the abbey, to combat the Devil, to which Amorth replies that it will be a life's work and that he will need an assistant, to which Esquibel acknowledges his support.

'The Pope's Exorcist' is entertaining enough but it doesn't offer the viewer anything new that we haven't seen many times before. There are plenty of plot holes here too, for example, I really can't believe that Amorth rode his Lambretta scooter all the way from Rome, through northern Italy, through southern France and down into Spain; or how Julia gets slammed head first into a bathroom sink that shatters and she gets up with nary a scratch; or how Henry and Amorth seem to recover from their demonic possessions almost instantly; or . . . . well, you know what I'm sayin' here! The film is however, elevated by Russell Crowe's performance as the often quirky, not too serious, scooter riding, whisky guzzling albeit dodgy accented Father Amorth who saves the day to battle it out on another occasion as the open ended conclusion paves the way for a potential sequel. The scares here are few and far between and the tension rarely amounts to much, but stylistically and visually the films looks the part, with particular credit going to Crowe and the twelve year old DeSouza-Feighoney who add a certain gravitas to the proceedings.

'The Pope's Exorcist' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-