A Movie You Might Have Missed #90 - Father Stu

GOD WANTED A FIGHTER. AND HE FOUND ONE.

The true-life story of boxer-turned-priest. When an injury ends his amateur boxing career, Stuart Long moves to Los Angeles to find money and fame. While scraping by as a supermarket clerk, he meets Carmen, a Sunday school teacher who seems immune to his bad-boy charm. Determined to win her over, the longtime agnostic starts going to church to impress her. However, a motorcycle accident leaves him wondering if he can use his second chance to help others, leading to the surprising realization that he’s meant to be a Catholic priest.

This is that rare find, a well done Christian movie. Usually we avoid faith based films like the plague because they are terribly schmaltzy, poorly acted and produced, and painfully obvious. We gave this a chance because we were intrigued not only by the basic story but by Mark Wahlberg's dedication to getting it produced.

It definitely is made for a specific audience which includes our family and it has the familiar beats of such a story. However, they were done in so well that it hit the mark in a big way. We were all pleasantly surprised by the high quality of acting and production which accompanied this inspiring story.

Note: some Catholics are put off by the very vulgar language. We felt it told the story of Stu's background and how far he comes. However, there is a PG-13 version where the language has been cleaned up called Father Stu Reborn.