Film Review: The Exorcism sees Russell Crowe in terrific form

"Joshua John Miller’s film offers flashes of homage to William Friedkin’s classic horror The Exorcist, delivering a behind-the-scenes psychodrama that blends reality and a blackly comic spin on the better known genre tropes"

Russell Crowe in The Exorcism

• The Exorcism
• ★★★★☆
• Cinema release

The Exorcism (16s) stars Russell Crowe as Anthony Miller, a washed-up movie actor given a shot at redemption when he’s offered the role of Fr Arlington in a horror about an exorcist priest.

The very picture of ‘pure testosterone drunk Americana’ in his prime, Anthony is now battling far more demons than the fictional Fr Arlington has to handle: a widower and a recovering addict at odds with his understandably rebellious teenage daughter Lee (Ryan Simpkins), Anthony quickly discovers that the role dredges up private horrors that threaten to unmoor him entirely.

But is Anthony experiencing a breakdown, or is he possessed by something truly demonic?

Joshua John Miller’s film offers flashes of homage to William Friedkin’s classic horror The Exorcist (the movie Anthony is working on is titled ‘the Georgetown Project’), delivering a behind-the-scenes psychodrama that blends Anthony’s reality and a blackly comic spin on the better known genre tropes (spinning heads, gravel-toned devils, etc.).

The wheels start to come off in the final act, when Miller doubles down on the story’s internal logic, but Russell Crowe is in terrific form here, and particularly when conveying Anthony’s helplessness in the face of demons — both psychological and supernatural.