[A] fairly kind of bland Hollywood story.

| Jan 31, 2024

... A Christian movie with a bit more heft than the schmaltzy tales routinely served up for middle America’s churchgoers.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 24, 2022

The star’s wild-card charisma motors the story along, even if events sprawl beyond the control of first-time director Rosalind Ross when tragedy enters.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 10, 2022

“(Wahlberg) feels out of place and, dare I say, a little bit ridiculous in the role… he gives a lot to it, but he doesn’t quite pull it off. The plot (also) feels quite heavy-handed in terms of its message."

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 20, 2022

Father Stu is so lifeless that saccharine would’ve been an improvement.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 20, 2022

Well-intentioned but ultimately mishandled, it commits the cardinal sin of indecisiveness, middling out in a purgatory of daddy issues and Sunday service pamphlets.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 19, 2022

Playing out to the histrionic squalling of a country-infused score, this is film-making that aims to smite its audience into submission.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 15, 2022

The strength of Father Stu is that Stu himself is fully imagined.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 14, 2022

Mark Wahlberg is convincing and committed as a foul-mouthed Father, but this is ultimately just religious propaganda — preaching exclusively to the converted.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 13, 2022

The movie isn’t awful, just sapping and strained.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 12, 2022

If Gibson weren’t part of the package it might be possible to like it more.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 12, 2022

Not so much a movie as a test case for the professional rehabilitation of Mel Gibson, this is a film that asks us to separate the dancer from the dance.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 11, 2022

Holy hokum.

| Original Score: 1/5 | May 10, 2022

"Father Stu" fails to make Long's saga resonate, capturing the remarkable elements of his life without locating the transcendence within the biographical details.

| Apr 15, 2022

Father Stu’s marketing materials make it seem like a faux movie, a parody. But after being invited to a press screening the other week, I can confirm that Father Stu is indeed a real-deal film – although it probably shouldn’t be.

| Apr 15, 2022

Father Stu is competently made and Wahlberg puts in another turn as an entertaining loser with a heart of gold. Narratively though, the inspirational story loses inspiration as the film suffers from front-loading...

| Apr 14, 2022

Father Stu is intended to be inspirational, but viewers may find any sense of elevation elusive.

| Apr 14, 2022

Told with sensitivity, earnestness and no small amount of sly, rascally charm, it is first and foremost a sure-handed match of material and a movie star’s strengths.

| Original Score: B- | Apr 14, 2022

Its clumsy, inert storytelling seems less interested in converting nonbelievers than in convincing us of Wahlberg’s piety.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Apr 14, 2022

Ross’ script is never able to pull this out of the depths of trite banality, every line and emotional beat clocked from a mile away and cribbed from every other faith-based drama you’ve ever seen.

| Apr 14, 2022