Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Father Stu’ on Netflix, a True-Story Drama Starring Mark Wahlberg as a Priest and Mel Gibson as His Crusty Ol’ Dad

Father Stu – now on Netflix – is the latest Mark Wahlberg vehicle, and at first glance, it appears to be Sincere Wahlberg (think Joe Bell or Patriots Day) more than Snarky One-Liner Wahlberg (Uncharted, Spenser Confidential) or Tough Guy Wahlberg (Lone Survivor, Shooter). But surprise – it’s all three Wahlberg personae blended into one! Father Stu is a BOATS (Based On A True Story, bro) drama in which he plays a boxer with a quick jab (Tough Guy) but a quicker wit (Snarky One-Liner) who bucks expectations and becomes a priest (Sincere) who becomes afflicted with a debilitating muscular disorder (which makes it DOUBLE Sincere). And get this, the movie’s also a faith-based movie co-starring Mel Gibson! It might be a small miracle (Catholic, natch) if it’s not a heavy-carnage trainwreck. Let’s find out.

FATHER STU: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: We first meet Stuart Long as a lad, doing the Risky Business thing to an Elvis record while his drunk-ass gruff-ass old man Bill (Gibson) grunts at him. Years later, Stu’s an adult with a handlebar mustache, ripped to the gills, clubbering guys in the ring and winking at blondes between rounds. Cue a BOXING MONTAGE followed by a visit to the doctor, who says his fighting days are over. His moms, Kathleen (Jacki Weaver), frets about her boy – she lost Stu’s five-year-old brother to a mysterious illness years ago, which drove Bill to drink like 100 fish and destroyed the family. And goddammit, she’s not losing her other son, who sadly visits his brother’s grave for a chat, then impulsively roundhouses a stone statue of Jesus Christ Himself. Stu’s in a tailspin, his identity crisis turning him into a champion drunk driver and arrest-resister.

But he has a lamebrained idea: He’ll move from Montana to L.A. to pursue an acting career. He gets a job at the butcher counter of a supermarket, thinking he’ll run into entertainment-biz people every day. Nyet. But he does land a gig for a mop commercial – and forces his cornball-sleaze quasi-charming personality upon Carmen (Teresa Ruiz) after he catches her eye one day in the soup aisle. She wants nothing to do with his smarmy ass, so he stalks her to the local Catholic church and doesn’t even pretend not to be a rampant, unrepentant sinner whose belief in higher powers is buried in the ground with his brother. His persistence wins her over, and it surely helps that she notices his bis and tris and pecs and delts when he pulls his shirt off to take a baptismal. Voila! He’s Catholic now! Like magic!

Soon enough, he seems to be earnestly taking to the faith, and Carmen warms to him. That doesn’t stop him from hitting the bar though, and one night a stranger sitting next to him strikes up a convo, dealing platitudes as Stu replies with wisecracks. On the way home, Stu gets into an awful motorcycle wreck and sees the Virgin Mary Herself, thus firing up his REDEMPTION ARC, baby! Carmen brings a bible to the hospital and places his hand on it and he almost instantly awakens from a coma. Is it a miracle? I’m not qualified to answer that. Cue a PRAYER MONTAGE followed by a declaration that makes one wonder how hard he hit his head on the pavement: “I’m gonna be a priest!” To which his mother replies, “For Halloween?” Zing.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: I think I already covered the triple-headed beast is the Wahlberg Personae, but neglected to mention that he played a boxer before in The Fighter.

Performance Worth Watching: In a role that features two or three good scenes but is mostly thankless, Ruiz boasts the least overwrought presence in the movie.

Memorable Dialogue: Stu sidles into the booth for his first confession ever: “I never done this before. I just rattle off the ways I f—ed up?”

Sex and Skin: None: The man upstairs does not approve of us watching such things!

Our Take: It’s hard to dislike Stu for firing back at platitudemongers – until he starts swallowing said platitudes, which feel cribbed from a dozen other middling inspirational BOATS movies. And before that, the character is a different collection of cliches, a damaged-yokel type with daddy issues who covers up his pain with a veneer of bad-boy smarm. This Stu is a perfectly acceptable person to hang out with for a couple of hours, Wahlberg kitchen-sinking the performance amiably, pushing himself as far as the unremarkable screenplay allows, from Partyguy-Ladykiller (Sex Implied, Never Seen) to the Cursin’ Seminary Student to the Humbled Lordservant. You don’t dislike the guy as he follows his heavily trod, Hollywoodized arc, but neither does he inspire one to feel more than lukewarm investment in his well-being.

Shall we talk about Mel Gibson? Do we have to? I dunno, but that’s obligation in the air here. He’s a real-life extremist Catholic, and he plays a shit here, an angry crudmerchant athiest sitting in a trailer with a bunch of empty bottles around him and a revolver in his pocket, just waiting to be Jesus-ified – and he’s never not convincing in his intensity, as most Mel Gibson performances go, so on and on we wrestle with that cognitive dissonance. It’s also tough sledding during a weepy-Wahlberg breakdown scene and his presence later in the film, when big putty wads are crazy-glued to his face to signify the character’s post-gym-rat weight gain. Easier to accept is the film’s proselytizing, which is quiet, draped in a layer of big-name performances, R-rated curse words and filmmaking professionalism you don’t usually get in a cheapo, intellectually vacant Kirk Cameron screed or God’s Not Dead; it’s a story of perseverance set in the Catholic church, which could really use a ray of light these days. Believers might be up for this collection of boilerplate emotions, but anyone hoping for the moral complexities of, oh, I dunno, reality will find little to chew on here.

Our Call: Father Stu is fine-minus, which isn’t quite enough to earn a recommendation. Take some Pepto for the Mel Gibson stuff, recite three Hail Marys and SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.