2023-05-09 13:33:01
Father Amorth (played by Russell Crowe) is a renowned Italian exorcist who is assigned hopeless possession cases. Despite his tendency to short-circuit his hierarchy and an attitude sometimes significantly different from that expected of a prelate, his results speak for him. As his superiors begin to question his work, the pope himself entrusts him with a delicate mission: to save the soul of a little boy threatened by a very powerful demon, in the depths of Spain…
Father Gabriele Amorth (1925-2016) really existed. And, like his character in the film, he was exorcist of the diocese of Rome, and wrote many books, which sold very well, and were even translated into French. He also created the International Association of Exorcists! An extraordinary figure, it will be agreed, of which it is however allowed to wonder if he was really as Russell Crowe interprets him on the screen.
Totally freewheeling, the New Zealand actor turns him into a priest who scolds his bosses, travels on a scooter, cassock in the wind, winks at nuns, shouts “You have a dirty face” at his deputy tested at the end of an exorcism, and regains his strength with a good swig of whiskey from the neck of his vial stashed in his ecclesiastical clothes!
A Don Camillo hunter of demons…
In short, we alternate shock sequences worthy of “The Exorcist”, by the great William Friedkin – who also made a documentary on the hero, “The Devil and Father Amorth”, released in 2017 – and passages almost from the series Z to “Is there an exorcist to save the world?” », with Leslie Nielsen… But, miraculously, the whole, which we are assured is inspired by Father Amorth’s own archives, holds up.
We end up getting attached to this Don Camillo demon tracker embodied by a Russell Crowe now very far from the athlete of “Gladiator” (physically, it’s more to the low-headed and mad driver of “Enrage” that it now looks like). The performance of the young child, played by a kid of 12 years, Peter DeSouza-Feighoney, also deserves a tip of the hat. With an already unusual face, the preteen is transformed thanks to the magic of make-up into a repulsive creature capable of pushing even Cristina Cordula and her “relookers” from the “Queens of shopping” to resign!
« The Vatican Exorcist », American horror film by Julius Avery, with Russell Crowe, Daniel Zovatto, Alex Esso, Laurel Marsden… 1h40. Prohibited for children under 12 years old.
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