Father Stu
Mark Wahlberg gives his all in the true story of a tortured boxer who finds redemption.
Like father… Mark Wahlberg and Mel Gibson
Everybody is extraordinary. The knack is how to convey that uniqueness to a cinema audience. On paper, the atypical trajectories of Stuart Long’s life may seem the stuff of great drama, but Rosalind Ross’s feature debut is a major misfire. The tragedy is that it’s obviously a real passion project for its producer/star Mark Wahlberg, who piled on a debilitating thirty pounds in weight and millions more in dollars to get the film realised. Inevitably, his commitment to the part of a real-life boxer – whose life takes an unexpected turn – will be compared to Raging Bull. But Wahlberg is no De Niro and Ms Ross – the romantic partner of co-star Mel Gibson – is no Scorsese. The film itself is a discomfiting thing, being a highly unpalatable drama about faith.
Stuart Long is portrayed as a cocky, insufferable, obnoxious and delusional fool, who mistakes his own inexplicable doggedness for charm. The young Stu has a lot to recover from. When he was nine, his four-year-old brother died from meningococcus, the calamity of which splintered the domestic status quo. Stu’s father turned to drink, his mother to bitterness, and the boy was forced to find his own equilibrium. “Grief isn’t a disability, Ma,” the adult Stu barks at her, “I looked it up.” To let off steam, he punches his way to a degree of minor celebrity in the ring, winning the 1985 Golden Gloves heavyweight title for Montana. But when his jaw is broken and he is required to undergo reconstructive surgery, he has a change of heart. Then, like De Niro’s Jake LaMotta, he turns to showbusiness, convinced that he has the looks and charisma to be the next Burt Reynolds. But Hollywood turns out to be just as brutal as his home life and, without wishing to give anything away, Stu’s next career move proves as unexpected as it is unlikely.
Like La Motta, Stuart Long is a tough character to spend time with. And Wahlberg’s interpretation is problematic. He is way too old to play Long in his youth, and his charmless braggadocio is more repellent than compelling. But we know where Stu gets it from: Mel Gibson’s turn as his father, Bill Long, is an exercise in brutish malevolence. Even members of Long’s family objected to Gibson’s portrayal, although Bill himself, apparently, shrugged it off. So, Father Stu is over two hours of toxicity and profanity, captured in jarring close-ups and restless camera moves, with none of the artistry of, say, Raging Bull. Instead, the film displays a grungy, dirty visual palette, some graceless editing and an aggressive and banal guitar-driven score. In his reach for realism, Wahlberg himself is hard to understand, save for his litany of expletives. Had more emphasis been placed on the man’s redemption, the third act would have exercised more emotional punch – an act that proves as jarring and unexpected at the rest of the man’s extraordinary life.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Mel Gibson, Jacki Weaver, Teresa Ruiz, Aaron Moten, Cody Fern, Malcolm McDowell, Carlos Leal, Alain Uy, Niko Nicotera, Faith Jeffries, Chiquita Fuller, Colleen Camp, Ned Bellamy.
Dir Rosalind Ross, Pro Mark Wahlberg, Stephen Levinson and Jordan Foss, Ex Pro Rosalind Ross, Tony Grazia and Colleen Camp, Screenplay Rosalind Ross, Ph Jacques Jouffret, Pro Des David Meyer, Ed Jeffrey M. Werner, Music Dickon Hinchliffe, Costumes Lisa Norcia.
Columbia Pictures/Municipal Pictures/CJ Entertainment-Sony Pictures.
124 mins. USA. 2022. US Rel: 15 April 2022. UK Rel: 13 May 2022. Cert. 15.
