“Deliver Us from Evil” takes a very long time to deliver us from dullness. This demonic possession police procedural only gets good and wound up for its third act exorcism.
That’s when Edgar Ramirez, as a chain-smoking, whisky loving Jesuit priest, stops phoning it in and gets wound up himself. As Mendoza, too hip to go by “Father,” he’s offered his services to the puzzled cop, Sgt. Sarchie (Eric Bana) much earlier.
But the doubting Sarchie makes us play the “How long before the cop gets around to calling the helpful priest” game as Satanic civilians (Iraq War vets) start showing signs of supernatural evil thanks to a tomb they stumbled into while on duty in the Middle East. Neither priest nor cop made a good first impression.
“So, you’re not all pedophiles, huh?”
Sarchie is a cop with “radar,” strong hunches that have him leading his partner (Joel McHale) into harm’s way.
“You know when you use ‘radar,’ you usually wind up with stitches.”
Checking into a domestic violence call, another “scratching noises in the basement” call, and a third “crazy woman at the Bronx Zoo” (at night) one has Sarchie seeing bloody visions and hearing static — and snippets of The Doors. “Break on through to the other side,” he’s ordered. “People are strange,” he’s warned.
The foreshadowing is obvious in this “inspired by the real Sarchie” account (a real New York cop who’s seen “The Exorcist a few too many times, judging from this). We hear him say, “I hate cats,” his daughter wonder “Why doesn’t Daddy come to church with us?,” and The Doors, and we know every one of those is a plot point that comes back for a cheap scare or an attempted jolt.
Overwhelming its other shortcomings is the Scott Derrickson film’s agonizing lack or urgency. Sarchie should be alarmed, frightened, obsessed. He has his own demons, we’re told. Bana doesn’t give us much of that.
And Ramirez, as Father Exposition, is just there — explaining demonic possession, how he came to believe in it and the stages of exorcism. He seems detached, barely involved, sleepy-eyed and sort of “Been there, done that” about the whole thing.
Ramirez comes off like that prom queen you envied back in school, and maybe pitied later in life. “Well, at least she’s pretty.” If we hadn’t seen him in that “Carlos the Jackal” TV film, we’d think he had nothing else to offer beyond looks.
But after 90 minutes in which the only creepy moments come when the evil comes after Sarchie’s wife (Olivia Munn) and kid (Lulu Wilson), everybody gets their game face on for the big Good/Evil confrontation with crucifixes, including an eyewitness black cop straight out of some horror parody.
And that delivery arrives as too little, too late.
　
MPAA Rating: R for bloody violence, grisly images, terror throughout, and language
Cast: Eric Bana, Olivia Munn, Edgar Ramirez, Joel McHale
Credits: Directed by Scott Derrickson, screenplay by Scott Derrickson and Paul Harris Boardman, based on the book by Ralph Sarchie and Lisa Collier Cool. A Screen Gems release.
Running time: 1:58