‘Padre Pio’ Review: Abel Ferrara Directs Shia LaBeouf In a Curious Take on a 20th-Century Saint
variety.comDennis Harvey Film Critic You might think Shia LaBeouf portraying a 20th-century Italian saint under the direction of perpetual bad-boy expat Abel Ferrara is a pretty strange prospect.
But that’s just the iceberg tip of the oddities in “Padre Pio,” which, despite the American star’s casting in the title role, often appears uninterested in its own venerated ostensible subject.
Instead, much of this awkward English-language period piece focuses on peasants’ struggle to overthrow padrone control just after the First World War.
Depicting that conflict often feels beyond the modest production’s scale — and, in any case, is never meaningfully connected to the angsty histrionics of LaBeouf, who seems to be in his own separate, indulgent, semi-improvised movie.
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