“The Pope’s Exorcist” follows Russell Crowe, who plays Catholic priest and exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth on his journey to help a boy with a demon in him.
Quick clarification for all the people who haven’t watched a possession movie or aren’t deep into theology: an exorcist is a Catholic priest who is specially trained to recognize demonic possessions and help those who they deem possessed.
Amorth is a witty, confident and sly priest who acts like the pope’s personal gunslinger. Amorth gets personally sent by the pope to Spain in order to investigate the possession of a young boy. When he gets there he acts like he usually does, cracking jokes at the demon. He soon realizes that he is in over his head. After a lot of failed attempts, blowing up a well full of gas, and uncovering a secret about the literal devil, the boy gets saved and everyone lives happily ever after.
This movie shouldn’t be as good as it is because it’s similar to every other possession movie, but it’s somehow different and therefore so much better. While it is a horror movie, it doesn’t only rely on being scary. Yes, there are plenty of scenes where people levitate, speak different languages, and even do the crab walk up a wall, but it also develops the characters beautifully. From Henry, the boy who gets possessed, who watched his dad get a pole through his head, to the local Spanish priest, who overcomes his fears and helps defeat Asmodeus, the devil.
This movie does something not many others do: it shows priests not as holier than thou people, but as humans with regrets and fears. Amorth failed to help a girl who later killed herself, and Father Esquibel, the Spanish priest, used a woman’s feelings for him to sleep with her. These people have done horrible things in their lives, which they regret, and have been haunted by for years. They hide these sins, which Satan uses, to haunt them and overpower them. They are able to defeat him only by confessing their sins, and letting their regrets pass away. The movie shows how even the pope’s chief exorcist is still human and can make bad choices.
Now, while some of you may read this and assume the movie is purely fictional, Amorth was a very real person, who served as the Vatican’s Chief Exorcist for 16 years and did over 70,000 exorcisms in his lifetime. He passed away in 2016, and still stands as one of the most important exorcists of the modern era, if not all time.
As a religious person myself, this movie gives me hope that anyone who is willing to admit that they are not perfect, and that they’ve made mistakes, can be forgiven and saved. It shows how even those I may consider better than me still make mistakes that may be worse than mine. It truly embodies Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
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