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.”
