Father Amorth (played by Russell Crowe) is a renowned Italian exorcist who is entrusted with desperate cases of possession. Despite his tendency to short-circuit his hierarchy and an attitude sometimes significantly different from that expected of a prelate, his results speak for themselves. While 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 an 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, we agree, which it is however possible to wonder if he was really as Russell Crowe interprets him on the screen.
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Totally freewheeling, the New Zealand actor makes him a priest who replaces his bosses, moves on a scooter, cassock in the wind, winks at the nuns, launches a "You have a dirty mouth" to his tried deputy at the end of an exorcism, and regains strength with good whisky lamp at the neck of his vial hidden in his ecclesiastical clothes!
A Don Camillo tracker of demons...
In short, we alternate shock sequences worthy of the "Exorcist", 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 Z series to the "Is there an exorcist to save the world? ", with Leslie Nielsen ... But, miraculously, the whole, which we are assured that it 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 is rather the low forehead driver and mad madman of "Enrage" that he now resembles). The performance of the young child, played by a 12-year-old kid, Peter DeSouza-Feighoney, also deserves a hat trick. Endowed with an already unusual face, the preteen transforms thanks to the magic of makeup into a repulsive creature capable of pushing even Cristina Cordula and her "makeovers" of the "Queens of shopping" to resign!
Editor's note:
4/5
"The Vatican Exorcist", American horror film by Julius Avery, with Russell Crowe, Daniel Zovatto, Alex Esso, Laurel Marsden... 1 hour 40 minutes. Prohibited for children under 12 years old.