‘Father Stu’ Review: As a Boxer-Turned-Priest, Mark Wahlberg Finds the Faith in a Sometimes Awkward True Story
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticThe ad campaign for “Father Stu” — before-and-after photos with Mark Wahlberg first looking sleazy in a mug shot, then as a clean-cut clergyman glancing up at the heavens — makes you think it’s going to be a movie about the world’s toughest priest.
It is, but not in the way you expect. “Father Stu” is based on the true story of Stuart Long, who started out as a boxer, and Wahlberg plays him as a benign ruffian in shaggy hair and a handlebar mustache who’s grinding away at being a fighter because he doesn’t know what else to do.
By the time the film starts, in the early ’90s, he is already over the hill: a former Montana Golden Gloves heavyweight champ who can no longer find a sponsor, and who walks away from each bout with lingering infections.
So he decides, on a whim, to go to L.A. to make it as an actor. He’s as naïve about his prospects, and as sun-dazed in his misplaced belief in himself, as Joe Buck in the early scenes of “Midnight Cowboy.” Wahlberg invests Stuart with a comparable self-adoring gift of gab, and “Father Stu,” which tends to zigzag from one plot point to the next, rides along for a while on his cockeyed optimism.
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