Al Pacino didn’t travel to the Venice Film Festival for the premiere of “Father Joe,” but he sent a video message with well wishes to his collaborators on the movie.
“I wish I was there with all of you in Venice, which is great and lovely. I’ve had films there. I’ve been there. I’ve experienced it,” said a sunglass-clad Pacino before he shouted out writer-producer Luc Besson (“It’s great to say his name”) and his co-star Kiefer Sutherland. “Have a good one. Best to you all.”
“Father Joe,” starring Sutherland, Pacino and Ever Anderson, takes place in 1990s Manhattan’s Little Italy and revolves around a priest who clashes with a mob boss. The action-thriller was written and produced by Besson and marks the directing debut of Barthélémy Grossmann. Grossmann has referred to “Father Joe” as a “modern fable about faith, redemption and the complexity of human nature.”
Sutherland plays the titular Father Joe, described as “a man of God unlike any other” who wages a secret war — singlehandedly busting crime rings and turning the city’s underworld into his congregation. Pacino plays a powerful crime lord whose empire collides with Father Joe’s crusade. Anderson portrays a young woman caught between danger and redemption under Joe’s guidance.
