Avery, Julius

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    ‘The Pope’s Exorcist’ Review: A Head-Spinning Genre Mash-Up

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    The buddy-priest action-comedy-horror hybrid we didn’t know we wanted has finally landed.It’s hard to pick the most surreal part of Julius Avery’s new horror film. It could be that the main character is based on the very real Rev. Gabriele Amorth, who used to be the Vatican’s chief exorcist (in a head-spinning twist, William Friedkin, the director of “The Exorcist,” once made a documentary about him). Or maybe it’s that Father Amorth is portrayed as an espresso-drinking, scooter-riding maverick by Russell Crowe in one of his most engaging performances in years. He is dispatched by the Pope (the cult Italian actor Franco Nero) to an isolated Spanish abbey where a young boy, Henry (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney), has started producing ungodly growls, changing colors and shapes, and making inappropriate moves on his mother (Alex Essoe, a Mike Flanagan horror regular).Amorth has his work cut out for him, but luckily he is paired with the inexperienced but game Father Esquibel (Daniel Zovatto), which adds a dollop of buddy-priest action comedy to an already genre-full plate. The two men have excellent, er, chemistry with the ancestral evil figure who has taken over Henry and is magnificently voiced by Ralph Ineson. Avery (“Samaritan”) drives the film at a pace as caffeinated as Amorth himself, and manages to incorporate legitimate scares into a plot halfway between Indiana Jones and a Dan Brown potboiler, with camp touches worthy of Ken Russell.“The Pope’s Exorcist” ends with a shameless suggestion that there is room for a sequel or even an entire series. It is not an unwelcome prospect.The Pope’s ExorcistRated R for demon-induced expletives and glimpses of naked ladies. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Samaritan’ Review: Taking Out the Trash

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      In this action film from Julius Avery, Sylvester Stallone stars as a sanitation worker who may be a superhero.“Samaritan,” a grouchy time-waster directed by Julius Avery, pounds the sidewalks of a fictitious city where decades ago, the super siblings Samaritan and Nemesis — mortal enemies and twins — dueled to the death, yet continue on as spray-painted symbols of hope and rage. A 13-year-old petty thief named Sam (Javon Walton) yearns to believe that the gallant brother secretly survived, and might even be his neighbor, Joe Smith (Sylvester Stallone), a sanitation worker with a penchant for musty action hero quips. (“Going my way?” he grunts to an elevator of goons.)This broken town needs a savior. Poverty roils the streets and Sam’s single mother, a working nurse (Dascha Polanco), struggles to make rent. The cinematographer David Ungaro and the production designers Greg Berry and Christopher Glass have created a city so lousy with litter, peeling paint and tatty couches that it’s believable when a criminal named Cyrus (Pilou Asbaek) convinces its citizens to rally behind his staged resurrection of the wrathful twin, Nemesis, who he claims punched the right people. At the same time, Cyrus’s irritable minion Reza (Moises Arias, an electric presence amped by eye-catching tattoos and hair), just wants to punch everyone, starting with Sam and Joe.Bragi F. Schut’s script mumbles its potentially intriguing themes: Do crumbling communities need a fighter or a figurehead? Do good and evil coexist inside us all? In lieu of embodying these questions, Stallone’s character, an apathetic, self-proclaimed troglodyte, glumly flattens a toaster with his bare hands. Michael Lehr’s fight choreography is designed around special effects that require little from the actor, who hurls scores of nameless brutes through walls with just a tap. At one point, Stallone even growls, “I’m not going to wreck my knees entertaining you.”SamaritanRated PG-13 for cursing and combat. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes. Watch on Amazon Prime. More