Directed By Rosalind Ross

Starring – Mark Wahlberg, Mel Gibson, Jacki Weaver

The Plot – Follows the life of Father Stuart Long (Wahlberg), a boxer-turned-priest who inspired countless people during his journey from self-destruction to redemption.

Rated R for adult language throughout

FATHER STU – Official Trailer (HD) – YouTube

POSITIVES

In proclaiming the best of what “Father Stu” has to offer, you have to give credit to the film first for what it is not. It’s a biopic, but not one that follows the telegraphed trail of tropes and predictability from what has become interchangeable cinema. Instead, it magnifies the many falls of this cherished figure, with as little triumphs along the way, crafting an experience that, while periodically disheveled, does supplant an air of unpredictability that keeps the film going throughout the extent of its two-hour run time. It’s also an evidentially religious film, but not one that sacrifices the edge of the material, nor the accessibility of cross-bred audiences with an overtly manipulative formula that ties much of the genre together. Instead, this is a film that isn’t afraid to ask difficult questions and deconstruct the judgements of its own way of life, which in turn not only creates a more compelling psychology investing in the perils of humanity, but also one that it uses to equally flesh out its atheist characters, whom aren’t moustache-twirling cartoons, to say the least. This sentiment can equally be felt from the film’s love story between Stu and his eventual wife Carmen (Played warmly by Teresa Ruiz), which initially begins as a physical conquest for the former before his internal feelings for her cement something sweet and endearing for the occasion. Because of such, it’s clear that Ross casts great importance in this angle of the story, as it ties the strings to everything past, present, or future for Stu’s ambitions, all the while proving that behind every good man there’s a great woman who believed in him when everyone else in his life let their preconceived notions take them hostage. Aside from this, Wahlberg commands attention as the titular protagonist, fleshing him out with a combination of caustic wit and playful ignorance that feel all the more defined for the sake of his eventual transformation, but the ingredients necessary for Mark to chew as much of the scenery without completely alienating the honorable intentions of the portrayal. That aforementioned transformation does elicit some surprisingly realistic elements of obscuring familiarity for both Wahlberg and the movie’s production, with a subtlety in facial prosthetics and a seamlessly textured body suit to convey Stu’s muscular myositis breaking down his body’s once picture-perfect physique from his days as a boxer. This element could feel unintentionally hilarious if done wrong, but the magnitude of its appearance does feel intentionally reserved for particular angles of the lens, allowing us just enough freedom in expression to fully register its influence without focusing on it long enough in ways that exploit the referential strings of its artificial designs.

NEGATIVES

Unfortunately, while “Father Stu” does take a few intriguing aspects of unconventional direction in the wisdom it unloads to its audience, it’s still a victim of its own inorganic piecing, both in the storytelling and dialogue, which present an uneven balance of pacing to two difficult hours to persist through. Because the first forty minutes of this film sift through multiple years and ambitions for Stu, it conjures a breakneck pacing that we understand it can’t quite attain if equally reaching to flesh out these real-life figures, in turn creating a grave shallowness for the supporting characters surrounding Stu that feel like types instead of living, breathing, entities. This can be felt the loudest in the dialogue, which works overtime to tell you everything that you should be feeling about these characters and feelings with some of the most writer-heavy emphasis looking to tackle as many bullet points as possible in the history of Stu’s life. From there, the technicalities of the movie’s presentation and sound design evoke an amateur sense of surrealism from what is otherwise a major studio (Sony) taking claim over the property. Though the movie’s elementary cinematography gives the film a shameless self-indulgence with religious imagery that stretches the time allowance they call upon such occasions, the audio mixing and editing is all the more astounding when you consider the magnitude of recklessness that they instill with their clumsiness. This results in line reads being obscured by improper volume levels of the most chaotic and contorted kind, based on the contradicting proximities of the actors in frame, but also creates a language barrier in the exposition that is already made an issue because of the spontaneity of Stu’s first act ambitions introducing something new every five minutes. This certainly makes it difficult to attach or feel inspired by the narrative, especially considering much of the script that isn’t progressing the narrative could’ve been cut or shaped for a 100-minute air-tight experience, keeping the focus in tow for an experience that is overcome by the displacement of the scenes it stitches together.

OVERALL

“Father Stu” isn’t an infallible installment of religious cinema, but its sincere story and daring deconstruction of Catholic focal points does create more than a few uniquely challenging conversation starters for the audiences who endure them, offering them only temporary reprieve from amateur levels of production value that plague it to purgatory.

My Grade: 5/10 or D