Review: The Exorcism

Heading into The Exorcism, you'd be forgiven for thinking this was a follow-up to Russell Crowe's recent The Pope's Exorcist. There Crowe played a real-life priest and occasional exorcist; here he's playing an actor who's just been cast as an exorcist in a remake of an iconic movie involving priests and demonic possession. The movie's real title is never mentioned. Guess these days there's a fair few of them to choose from.

Anthony Miller (Crowe) flushed his career and his family down the toilet years ago. Now he's sober and he's trying to get both back. His career through a comeback role as an exorcist, his daughter Lee (Ryan Simpkins) by having her stay with him after she was kicked out of boarding school.

Miller is a troubled man, and his childhood experiences as an altar boy have left him skittish around the church. But he needs the gig, and despite a lot of reluctance from the money men, the director (Adam Goldberg) signs him for the role - though his motivational methods might be a little too effective in stirring up Miller's past.

Oh yeah, and the main reason why Miller got the role was because the big name they previously cast died. On set. While going through his lines for a scene where he confronts a demonic force. 

Now Miller's sleepwalking, lights are falling from the ceiling, his performance is bad in an increasingly unsettling way, and the whole situation is giving off a very creepy vibe. Is it merely Miller's personal demons brought back by the pressures of work, or will Lee and the film's religious advisor Father Conor (David Hyde Pierce) have to face down a demon of the more literal kind?

We all know how exorcism movies work, and while this (which was filmed back in late 2019) is initially a slow burn, it does eventually get around to delivering the sudden soundtrack stings and casual blasphemy. A more interesting development here is having Miller be the source of a few of the better jump scares; one of Crowe's big strengths in this stage of his career is that he can just as easily be the good guy or the bad, and this makes good use of that ambivalence.

Director and co-writer John Joshua Miller is the son of Jason Miller, who played the priest who goes out the window in the original Exorcist. He brings a satisfying level of dread to a number of individual scenes, which helps gloss over the way the overall story doesn't really hold together. Presumably "I was possessed by a demon" is a legitimate defense when it comes to being charged with murder in the US justice system.

There's next to nothing new here (somewhat intentionally, considering the classic its riffing on), but Crowe drags the whole thing over the line through sheer force of will. It's the kind of film where it feels like everyone else turned up just because they knew he'd be there; Sam Worthington, who basically has an extended cameo as Miller's adoring co-star, almost certainly signed on just to spend time across from Crowe. And who could blame him? Even when Crowe's deliberately acting badly, he's still good.

So yes, the story loses focus here and there, and a few scenes stretch credibility beyond breaking point - like the time when someone goes full Satanic crabwalk during filming and the entire crew doesn't quit on the spot. And yet: the power of Crowe compels you. 

- Anthony Morris