Russell Crowe delivers a solid performance as the Vatican's bad boy, Father Gabriel Amorth, but what an actor like him is doing anywhere near this kind of production is a mystery. Money could have been saved by casting a lesser-known actor as the lead and it still wouldn't have made a great deal of difference to this film's overall appeal. It's definitely entertaining but because it's not as disturbing as The Exorcist or as intriguing as The Da Vinci Code, it offers nothing new in either genre and settles somewhere in the middle, as a well produced but slightly puzzling mix of horror and popcorn (with explosions). 'Let's go to work' Amorth says when the true extent of his mission is revealed just before the credits roll - presumably meaning there will be 199 sequels.
Review of The Pope's Exorcist
