Padre Pio, 2022.
Directed by Abel Ferrara.
Starring Shia LaBeouf, Cristina Chiriac, Marco Leonardi, Asia Argento, Vincenzo Crea, Luca Lionello, Brando Pacitto, Stella Mastrantonio, Salvatore Ruocco, Federico Majorana, Michelangelo Dalisi, Martina Gatti, Alessio Montagnani, Roberta Mattei, Ermanno De Biagi, Alessandro Cremona, Ignazio Oliva, Valeria Correale, Federica Dordei, Piergiuseppe Francione, Anna Ferrara, and Francesco D’Angelo.
SYNOPSIS:
WWI has ended but events surrounding the first free election in Italy threaten to tear the village apart. Padre Pio struggles with his own personal demons, ultimately emerging to become one of Catholicism’s most venerated figures.
The latest from co-writer/director Abel Ferrara (who seems to be working and putting out movies during old age more frequently than any other point in his career, but with stunning drops in quality, proving further evidence that maybe there is something to Quentin Tarantino’s insistence on retiring after ten directorial efforts), Padre Pio (written alongside Maurizio Braucci) is a tale of two stories set inside an impoverished Italian village post-World War I, with socialism on the rise and about to clash with fascism and culminate with a radical political election. Somewhere off to the side is the eponymous friar who has begun his duties and is on a spiritual journey of redemption and enlightenment that rings all too familiar to the star, Shia LaBeof’s real-life personal struggles and demons.
While I firmly believe actors’ real-life shouldn’t cloud film criticism judgment and that there’s nothing wrong with taking on a role that blends reality and fiction to get to the core of those struggles and work through some inner pain, once Shia LaBeouf broke the news that Honey Boy, a movie he sold as a story about his rough childhood upbringing including an abusive father, was mostly a load of bullshit angling for an Oscar nomination and viewer sympathy in hopes of forgiveness (something he has already been granted more than once) for alarming behavior, I no longer give a shit about watching him act out moral and spiritual crises on screen as a metaphor for atoning his troubling actions finding God and becoming a better person.
Besides, Shia LaBeouf is horrendous here anyway, somehow feeling completely out of place in a movie where everyone else is Italian and failing to act out English dialogue convincingly. Again, his work offering guidance to the poor locals also never crosses paths much with the story’s center (unless one stretches hard searching for a thematic crossover), which is a dramatically empty socialist uprising from the overworked, mistreated citizens (one of them dies during slave labor). The terrible performances are not the actors’ fault, but Abel Ferrara doesn’t help himself by shooting many of the scenes equally dull, where everything feels like an amateur hour stageplay.
There are traces of Abel Ferrara flair, with Padre Pio hallucinating various temptations from the devil, complete with hypnotic blue lighting among relative darkness, but it doesn’t amount to anything compelling since that character is simply boring and oddly performed by Shia LaBeouf, who at one point starts shouting “shut the fuck up” to someone following their deeply disturbing confession. It’s one of the most American performances imaginable that doesn’t fit inside this Italian history.
That history here is fascinating to a degree, so, unfortunately, Abel Ferrara seems more concerned with bending everything about that to fit inside the shape of Shia LaBeouf’s abilities, which are terrible here anyway, lacking nuance and depth. There are moments within the uprising plot that overcome these limitations and handicaps, especially the tragic, bloody climax, but otherwise, Padre Pio is yet another recent misfire from Abel Ferrara. Now that’s difficult to forgive.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
