Movie Review: 'The Pope's Exorcist' is a Fun Bad Movie

The Pope's Exorcist (2023)

Directed by Julius Avery

Written by Michael Petroni, Evan Spiliotopoulos

Starring Russell Crowe, Daniel Zovatto, Alex Essoe, Franco Nero

Release Date April 14th, 2023

Published April 17th, 2023

The Pope's Exorcist is a very silly movie that doesn't know it's a very silly movie. That makes it one of my favorite movies of 2023 so far. I love a good unironic bad movie. The makers of The Pope's Exorcist appear to be earnestly attempting to entertain and failing by being as mediocre and misconceived as possible. It's as if we know that the movie is doomed but the people making it are entirely clueless and we can't warn them, we can only marvel at the bad decisions that led them to so earnestly and obviously fail at their intended goal.

From the moment that star Russell Crowe, now fully into his Orson Welles, Frozen Peas period, sits himself on a little Vespa, The Pope's Exorcist is doomed to induce snarky giggles. Who thought that having him on a little scooter for the entire movie was a good idea? From there, it's all downhill. The Pope's Exorcist appears to have been a failed script for a cop drama that was reworked into being about an exorcist who works for the pope.

Crowe's Father Amorth is your classic Cop who plays by his own rules, occasionally working outside the law to get his suspect. The Pope, played by Franco Nero, is the Chief who does what he can to keep the heat off of his rogue cop because despite his flaws, he gets the job done. Then there is a Papal Internal Affairs panel that threatens to take away Father Amorth's badge if he doesn't start, I don't know, exorcising demons inside the boundaries of Papal law? Maybe.

Naturally, the next big case for Father Amorth will put him to his biggest test as he uncovers corruption inside the church. In this case, the truth of the Spanish Inquisition is hidden in the bowels of an Abbey that belongs to a troubled family. Alex Essoe plays a mother of two, a teenager played by Laurel Marsden, and her silent little brother, Henry )Peter DeSouza-Feighoney), who remains deeply traumatized after nearly dying in the accident that killed his father.

This trauma makes the boy susceptible to a demon when his family moves to this Spanish Abbey with plans to fix it up and flip it. The demon escapes a tomb in the basement, possesses Henry, and calls for Father Amorth to fight, but not before he helps introduce another cop movie trope in this not-a-cop movie. Through Henry's possession, we meet a rookie Priest on his first case, Father Esquibel, played by Daniel Zovatto. When he proves to be no match for the demon, he takes on the role of Father Amorth's rookie partner.

I giggled all the way through The Pope's Exorcist. As the completely incongruous cop movie parallels played out I started ticking them off on a mental bingo card. I was thoroughly entertained by The Pope's Exorcist if not in the way the movie intended me to be entertained. The film is so completely oblivious to its own lack of quality that this ignorance becomes the film's greatest strength. As the actors earnestly applied their talents to this material I fell more and more in love with their actorly dedication to the nonsense at hand.

Russell Crowe is one of our finest actors. Much like hearing Orson Welles genuinely dedicate himself to being the voice of a Transformer in Transformers The Movie, Crowe's dedication to the silliness of The Pope's Exorcist lifts him above embarrassment into a place of genuine appreciation. Crowe is quite good in The Pope's Exorcist even as the movie is remarkably dimwitted. Watching a man of Crowe's talent appear to relish playing a role in a movie this silly was an utter delight for me.

Do I recommend The Pope's Exorcist? Yes, but only if you view it through the same ironic lens through which I viewed it. If you go into this movie expecting to be scared or expecting to be surprised by the demonic twist and turns that supposedly recall movies like The Exorcist, you will be disappointed. I've seen many critics who have come out of The Pope's Exorcist angrily condemning the movie for being bad. I understand where they are coming from but if they'd lighted up a little, they might have enjoyed the badness the way I did. The Pope's Exorcist is a joyously bad movie, a film for which badness is a feature, not a bug.

Find my archive of more than 20 years and nearly 2000 movie reviews at SeanattheMovies.blogspot.com. Find my modern review archive on my Vocal Profile, linked here. Follow me on Twitter at PodcastSean. Follow the archive blog on Twitter at SeanattheMovies. Listen to me talk about movies on the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast. If you have enjoyed what you have read, consider subscribing to my writing on Vocal. If you'd like to support my writing, you can do so by making a monthly donation or by leaving a one-time tip. Thanks!