Thursday, March 28, 2024

Panned: Critics Rip “Father Stu,” Mel Gibson’s New Movie Written and Directed by His Baby Mama

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Top critics on Rotten Tomatoes are saying “no thanks” to “Father Stu.”

The newest Mel Gibson movie, written and directed by his baby mama, Rosalind Ross, has a lowly 46 % 42% on the review site.

Among Top Critics, so far only three of ten gave the movie a “fresh” rating. Seven in that category have panned it.

Sony will release the film starring Mark Wahlberg this Friday to try and cash in on Easter weekend.

But the reviews are scathing. Mark Kennedy of the Associated Press wrote: “Wahlberg is simply miscast, out of his depth, and the overly long, poorly edited Father Stu never finds its rhythm. Good at humor, sweet with regret but the film ironically ends up short when it comes to the most important part: handling faith itself.”

The Arizona Republic said: “Just because something is based on real life doesn’t mean it can’t be cliched.”

The Hollywood Reporter: “Despite some R-rated language, the whole enterprise seems bland and perfunctory.”

Uproxx: “A fascinatingly bizarre attempt to apply the Protestant framework of ‘Heaven Is For Real’ to a Catholic story. They should’ve called it ‘Purgatory Is For Real.’ ”

Yikes.

Among the executive producers (the money) listed for “Father Stu” is Miky Lee, heiress to the Samsung fortune and long ago an early investor in the now defunct Dreamworks.

“Father Stu” is Ross’s first feature. She’s been involved with Gibson since 2014 and gave birth to his umpteenth child in 2017. Gibson is infamously an anti-Semite and racist whose late father, like him, did not believe the Holocaust happened.

Wahlberg gained a lot of weight to play Father Stu and at the same time has diminished the career he built so carefully with movies like “Ted” and producing the hit series, “Entourage.”

 

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.
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