--- title: "Father Joe" year: 2026 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/father-joe" fi1m_score: 55 critics_score: 55 critics_reviews: 4 published: "2026-09-20T20:59:43.777863+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T21:19:13.871550+00:00" region: "HK" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Father Joe (2026) Directed by Barthélémy Grossmann · 1h 56m · Action, Crime, Thriller **Fi1m score: 55** · Critics 55 (early) from 4 reviews *In a sentence:* A priest with a gun; Besson thinks that is the joke and Sutherland plays it as scripture > Luc Besson’s script gives Kiefer Sutherland a collar and a gun and little else. Sutherland plays it dead straight, which is the film’s best joke and its only real idea; around him the violence is loud, the humour flat and the picture oddly cheap. ## Synopsis Father Joe (Kiefer Sutherland) is a priest who deals with the gangsters around his parish by killing them. Luc Besson’s script puts him in the middle of a mob story: Lorenzo (Sebastián sierra), Luca (Esteban Dager), Andrea (Victor von Schirach) and Igor Rochenko (Miglen Mirtchev) are the men around him, and Detective Peter (Avant Strangel) is the police. Al Pacino takes second billing and Ever Anderson third. The first act sets up the two lives Joe is holding apart, the altar and the gun, and lets the violence climb until it is plain that the two cannot stay separate for long. What he wants is to go on being both men; what stands in his way is everyone who has noticed. ## Review Luc Besson has written a film in which a priest kills gangsters, and has handed it to Barthélémy Grossmann to direct and Kiefer Sutherland to carry. That is the whole pitch, and the film knows it, and for a while knowing it is enough. *Father Joe* is a throwback to the kind of hired-gun picture Besson was making and producing thirty years ago, loud, bloody and pleased with itself, and it has one thing those films did not, which is Sutherland refusing on principle to smile. The refusal is the performance. Sutherland plays Joe as a man who takes both halves of his life with equal seriousness: the collar is not a disguise and the gun is not a lapse. He does not wink. He does not pause after the absurd lines to let us know he heard them. Whatever Besson meant the character to be, Sutherland has decided he is a believer, and the film is better whenever the camera stays on him long enough for that decision to register. We laughed properly perhaps twice, and both times it was his face rather than the script that did it: the flat, unamused stare of a man who has just done something appalling in a cassock and is waiting for the next thing. The lines around him are broad and mostly land with a thud. Besson writes gangsters the way he always has, as furniture with accents, and the film’s humour is the kind that announces itself and then stands there. Around Sutherland is a cast list built for a mob picture. Sebastián sierra plays Lorenzo, Esteban Dager plays Luca, Victor von Schirach plays Andrea, and Miglen Mirtchev turns up as Igor Rochenko; Avant Strangel is Detective Peter, the police presence. Michael Rispoli, Fred Melamed, Chris Tardio and Erik Palladino fill out the rooms. Al Pacino takes second billing and is used exactly as a film like this would use him, for the name and the voice. Ever Anderson is the other name of note, third on the bill. The picture itself is the disappointment. Grossmann shoots the action without much sense of where anyone is standing, so the gunfights are loud and hard to follow, and the frame is oddly plain for a film with this much blood in it. Hugues Tissandier’s production design and Corinne Bruand’s costumes do the one job the film asks of them, which is to keep the collar visible in every fight and a church recognisable behind it. Matteo Locasciulli’s score does the pushing the camera does not, and it pushes hard. There is a stranger thing in it too, which is that the film is generous about religion. Joe’s faith is not a costume for the film to mock, and nobody else’s is mocked either; for a picture this crude, that is an unexpected courtesy, and it gives the quieter scenes a warmth the loud ones never earn. It is also the closest the film comes to an idea. By the last half hour the gunfire had stopped registering as anything at all. Besson wrote *Léon* (1994), which made a hitman and a child into something close to tender. *Father Joe* has the hitman and none of the tenderness. Sutherland deserved a better film and may well know it, since he also produced this one. It runs 116 minutes, which is twenty more than the joke has in it. *Fi1m score 55, published 20 September 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is Father Joe worth watching?** *Father Joe* is a mixed bag we scored 55, worth an evening only for viewers who want a loud, bloody hired-gun picture and will settle for one good performance in it. Kiefer Sutherland plays the killer priest dead straight and is the film's best joke and only real idea; the gunfights are hard to follow, the humour flat and the 116 minutes run long. **How long is Father Joe, and what is it rated?** *Father Joe* runs 1h 56m. It is an action and crime film. **Where can I watch Father Joe in Hong Kong?** *Father Joe* is not on any streaming or rental service in Hong Kong at the moment. Availability is checked daily. **How violent or frightening is Father Joe, and is it suitable for children?** *Father Joe* is not for children: it is a film about a priest who kills gangsters, and the violence is frequent, loud and bloody. It carries no certificate that we can point to, but the material itself is adult crime-thriller stuff, with gunfights that stop registering as anything by the last half hour. It is not frightening in the horror sense, so the squeamish rather than the nervous should stay away. **How does Father Joe compare to Léon: The Professional?** *Father Joe* is the weaker film beside *Léon: The Professional*, and by a distance. Both come from Luc Besson and both build a story round a hitman, but *Léon* is gripping and unusually tender, while *Father Joe* keeps the killing and drops the feeling, leaving Kiefer Sutherland to hold it up alone. Anyone drawn to the premise should watch the earlier film first, though its treatment of a child inside all that violence is harder to accept. ### Reviews we read (4) - **Screen Daily** (60/100, inferred): The critic calls the film endearingly ludicrous, with Sutherland delivering a commanding performance as the vigilante priest that grounds the character's contradictions. However, even that cannot fully enliven the knowingly trashy and derivative silliness of the hyper-violent action romp. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/festivals/father-joe-review-kiefer-sutherland-takes-holy-orders-in-luc-bessons-violent-action-romp/5220004.article) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Jordan Mintzer (25/100, inferred): The critic calls the film a bargain-bin B-movie and schlocky genre flick with generic action and flat humor. The script is dismissed as juvenile, with most performances uninspired except for a minor note on one supporting role. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/father-joe-review-kiefer-sutherland-al-pacino-luc-besson-1236697260/) - **Deadline**, Damon Wise (85/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a deliriously violent, absurdly entertaining throwback actioner with a fantastically absurd script from Luc Besson. They single out its rock'n'roll energy, over-the-top firepower and Kiefer Sutherland's committed, funny performance. [Read](https://deadline.com/2026/09/father-joe-review-kiefer-sutherland-al-pacino-luc-besson-venice-1237069403/) - **The Wrap** (60/100, inferred): The review calls the film a goofy, scattershot pastiche of mafia and religious-hitman tropes that remains coherent enough to entertain despite flat visuals and dramatic shortcomings. It singles out Kiefer Sutherland's intense commitment to the absurd premise and the film's optimistic religious pluralism for occasional charm. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/movies/father-joe-review-kiefer-sutherland-al-pacino/) ## Details - **Director:** Barthélémy Grossmann - **Director:** Barthélémy Grossmann - **Writer:** Luc Besson - **Music:** Matteo Locasciulli - **Production design:** Hugues Tissandier - **Costume design:** Corinne Bruand - **Producer:** Luc Besson, Kiefer Sutherland - **Cast:** Kiefer Sutherland as Father Joe; Al Pacino; Ever Anderson; Michael Rispoli; Sebastián sierra as Lorenzo; Fred Melamed; Chris Tardio; Erik Palladino - **Runtime:** 1h 56m - **First release (Italy):** 5 September 2026 - **Genres:** Action, Crime, Thriller ## Where to watch in Hong Kong Not streaming, renting or buying in Hong Kong at the last check. ## If you liked this - *Léon* (1994), Fi1m 74: Besson’s hitman film done properly, with the tenderness this one keeps missing. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/leon-the-professional.md) - *The Man from Nowhere* (2010): A quiet man, a child in danger, and violence you can actually follow. - *Nobody* (2021): Bob Odenkirk as the mild neighbour with a past; the joke is played straight and lands. - *Calvary* (2014), Fi1m 81: Brendan Gleeson’s priest faces his parish without a gun; far more frightening for it. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/calvary.md) - *The Night of the Hunter* (1955), Fi1m 91: Robert Mitchum’s preacher with love and hate on his knuckles; the original armed clergyman. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-night-of-the-hunter.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/father-joe