The Pope's Exorcist (2023)

I might say "spoilers" but it's not the kind of movie you can really spoil.

Some years ago I read an artical about an exorcism confrence, it's weird to think of a conference were exocrists get together and talk about their craft, technique, tools of the trade and presumably recent developments in the field. A featured speaker was Manuel Acuna, the prefered exocrist of Pope Francis during his Argentine days, something of a controversial choice. given that Acuna is a Lutherian. Upon papel elevation Francis would inherated as official exocrist of the Diocese of Rome Father Gabriele Amoroth, who had served his two immediate predecessors and would hold the position from 1986 until his death in 2016 at age 91, he had purportedly performed thousands of exocrisims.

'The Pope's Exocrist' is based losley on two of Amoroth's longer writings, as his character tells an associate upon learning he has only read his articals "the books are good", a joke that will ocure more then once in the movie. The real Amoroth was apparently something of a jokester, I image his a profession in which the ability to ease tension is particularly helpful psychologically, or even practically as he also informs us that the devil hates jokes.

Amoroth is played by Russell Crowe, his performance fits well the strangely balanced tone of the piece. This movie plays things, even kind of ridiculous things, mostly straight, while it takes it demons seriously it's dosen't take its self too much so. Set in the summer of 1987 the plot is principally concerned with the exorcism of a young American boy (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney) living with his sister (Laural Marsden) and widowed mother (Alex Essoe) in Spain, specifically a recently inherited former abby they are in the process of renovating. The abby of course has a dark history, which gets into Dan Brown territory, and is home to one of Satan's 200 top demons. Gabriele enlists the young local priest (Daniel Zovatto) to assist him in his fight against evil, and along with the boys family they must all learn to fight personal inner demons in order to fight a real physical demon.

As mentioned before the film does an impressive job of balancing its various elements, it is neither too serious or too silly; it has roots in classic's of the genre like 1973's ' The Exocrist', but also it's knock-offs, Dan Brown fare and even Universal's abortive 'Dark Universe' (yes Crowe was in the Tom Cruse 'Mummy movie), ending by telling us that Father's Amoroth and Esquibel have begun their hunt for the Devils 199 other lieutenants.

So I liked it, have gone back and forth a bit on how to rate it but have decided to go with a full *** rather then **1/2, because while it ain't deep or groundbreaking, it is unexpectedly well executed and consistently entertaing. For those who might be wondering a Pope does make an apperence in this movie, though rather then the period correct John Paul II its a fictional Pope played by Italin B movie legend Franco Nero, the original Django himself, the devil hadn't a chance.