Father Stu

Based on a true story, Father Stu follows amateur boxer Stuart Long (Mark Wahlberg) as he makes the unexpected decision to become a priest after suffering an almost life-ending accident. It’s reasonable-enough subject matter that could’ve been employed in service of a familiar yet watchable biopic, and yet first-time filmmaker Rosalind Ross, working from her own screenplay, delivers a hopelessly generic and pervasively tedious drama that contains few, if any, elements designed to capture and sustain the viewer’s interest – with the arms-length atmosphere perpetuated by a wheel-spinning narrative and an often astonishingly sluggish pace. (The wildly overlong running time doesn’t help matters, either.) There’s little doubt, as well, that Ross’ continuing incompetence ensures that Father Stu‘s various performers are left floundering within the context of simplistic, one-dimensional characters, which is a shame, certainly, given that Ross has enlisted the efforts of such top-tier periphery players as Mel Gibson, Jacki Weaver, and Malcolm McDowell. It’s not surprising to note, then, that by the time the thoroughly anticlimactic and laughably unsubtle final stretch rolls around, Father Stu has firmly and completely cemented its place as a bottom-of-the-barrel endeavor that’s hardly able to make the resonant, emotional impact for which Ross is obviously striving.

1/2* out of ****