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OPINION One of the most magnetic actors of our time seems trapped in B-movie hell, writes Alexander Larman. How can Russell Crowe get out? If you watched the trailer for the new Russell Crowe picture entitled The Exorcism , you might be forgiven for feeling a sense of deja vu. It was only last year that Crowe was starring in another exorcism-themed horror film, entitled The Pope’s Exorcist .

That film was largely greeted with critical derision but, like many low-budget horror pictures, was a profitable hit, as well as attracting praise for its star’s typically sturdy and committed performance as Father Amorth, the titular demon-botherer. The Exorcism , however, does not star Crowe as a man of God, but as the virtual opposite, a troubled actor whose life begins to fall to pieces while he is making a new horror film. In a suitably meta twist, art imitating life, and The Exorcism – which was filmed all the way back in 2019 – had a lengthy and tortuous post-production period, delayed by Covid and the concern on the part of the production company that the film did not entirely work and needed reshoots.



Yet it is only now, thanks to the moderate success of The Pope’s Exorcist , that Crowe – clearly a bankable star when it comes to tales of diabolical possession – can release his latest picture to a doubtless terrified public. In a wide-ranging interview that the Oscar-winning actor gave to GQ recently , Crowe – always candid with journalists, sometimes to a point of.

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