Our stern, but honorable protagonist, who in similar films might be played by Daniel Craig, Matt Damon or Liam Neeson, is Father Quart, portrayed by Richard Armitage (“Ocean’s 8”). We are introduced to Quart in suitable tough guy pose — performing press-ups while stripped to the waist, which is not the only time that this male body is presented as a spectacle. Quart is a member of Vatican External Affairs — i.e., Vatican intelligence — sent to investigate a church in Seville. The church is up for demolition so that urban regeneration / gentrification can proceed, but the owner of the land as well as the resident priest are resisting the developers. Mysterious deaths in the church cause the Vatican to take an interest, an interest further fueled by a mysterious hacker who breaks through the Vatican’s firewalls to send a personal plea to the Pope. Eager to avoid a scandal, the head of External Affairs, Monseñor Paolo Spada (Paul Guilfoyle, “Spotlight”) dispatches Quart, who is struggling with guilt over his last assignment. Quart insists to all that he encounters that he is in Seville to “write a report,” but the various figures he meets, including landowner Macarena Bruner (Amaia Salamanca, “Despite Everything”), Padre Príamo Ferro (Paul Freeman, “A Fantastic Fear of Everything”), Pencho Gavira (Rodolfo Sancho, “Don’t Listen”), Gris Masala (Alicia Borrachero, “Terminator: Dark Fate”) and Comisionado Navajo (Victor Mallarino, “Bluff”) are, not unreasonably, convinced that there is more going on. Indeed, Quart quickly learns of heated marital disputes, local legends, blackmail and cover-ups.

The Catholic Church lends itself to this genre. Like intelligence agencies, it is presented as a large-scale institution with bureaucracy, multiple departments, an almost regal presence at the top, senior bigwigs, field agents plus high technology, and tensions with local authorities. Some might find it unrealistic that a priest is equipped with a handgun and remote tech support, running around like James Bond or Jack Bauer. Others might find it all too believable that the Church wields this sort of power. Ultimately, whether any of this is realistic or not is irrelevant, because the real question is does it work as a narrative? For the most part, the answer is yes, as screenwriter-director Sergio Dow delivers an intriguing and absorbing thriller with attractive Euro-locations and many ornate surroundings in which its colorful cavalcade of characters clash. Dow’s direction is unremarkable but functional, eschewing shaky cam stylistics or jarring editing like Paul Greengrass, or attention-grabbing long takes à la Sam Hargraves’ “Extraction.” The action sequences are punchy but contained, allowing us to see the action choreography and keeping gunshots to a minimum.

Unusually though, Dow manages to make hacking dramatic. An early scene in the Vatican’s cyber security center features inter-cutting between the priestly tech team (because that’s a sentence) and a mysterious hooded figure hacking into their systems with all the import of breaching the NSA. Fingers tapping on keyboards and various screens of rapidly appearing code are not inherently exciting, but with judicious cutting, Dow and editors Pablo Blanco and Miguel Angel Prieto evoke genuine tension more akin to Michael Mann’s electrifying “Blackhat” than the tedious “Live Free or Die Hard.”

Pleasingly, despite the slightly camp hacker figure, The Man from Rome features relatively little in the way of moustache-twirling villainy. A loose assembly of enemies demonstrates the globalized nature of finance, embezzlement, development and corruption. That said, Gavira makes for a convincing bastard, both in terms of his financial venality and domestic attitude.

In opposition to these shady characters, Armitage is an engaging lead, channeling an energy reminiscent of Clive Owen in “The International.” As Monseñor Spada, Guilfoyle is a tricky presence, appearing by turns both trustworthy and also less so. Carlos Cuevas as Padre Cooey provides a Q-like figure to Quart’s 00-Dog Collar, while Salamanca makes Macarena a suitable damsel who manages her distress quite well, thank you very much. Fionniula Flanagan (“Havenhurst”) makes a surprising appearance as a Spanish Duchess, who is perhaps used rather heavy-handedly. As this list may indicate, the film has a lot of characters, and it may be hard to keep up with them, but it does keep the viewer guessing, which is part of the fun with a film like this. And by large, this is a fun film, that effectively infuses the genre tropes with its religious conceit. Some elements are less effective: There is a romance angle that goes nowhere, so begs the question of what was the point? More grating is the constant presence of English dialogue. One character is Irish and two are American, the rest are Spanish, Italian or from Eastern Europe. Yet in Vatican City and Seville, everyone speaks English, with a variety of accents. With a largely Spanish cast and a clear presence of internationalism, the English is quite jarring, to the extent that when Quart orders a coffee in Spanish, it comes as something of a relief. For an international co-production between Spain, Italy and Colombia, it is strange and annoying that subtitles still seem to be a big problem.

Aside from these two aspects, and a rather clunky title, The Man from Rome is an effectively intriguing conspiracy mystery that blends espionage, cyber thrills and religion into a rich concoction. It may not be worth devout worship, but no one involved in the film need say a Hail Mary.

Almost two centuries later, Gerry Fenn (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, “Rampage”) buys coffee from a truck in the early morning before he gets a call to head out to small town Banfield, MA — “A little piece of God’s county.” A farmer relays a story about his cows being mysteriously mutilated, and is astonished when Gerry inquires about the farmer’s teenage son who, according to the benign spray-painted marking left on the cow, is probably a Metallica fan. The two men wander over to a twisted oak tree in the field as Gerry’s attention is drawn to an object catching the sunlight; he discovers a small doll in a hollow at the base of the tree. The doll is bound by chains and a small engraved plate that reads February 31, 1845 — an impossible date. Annoyed because his time was wasted and driven by the desire to get a story somehow, Gerry stomps on the doll and asks the farmer to pose next to it, fabricating a story about mutilated cows and a mysterious talisman found in a nearby tree.

Later that night, Gerry drives through the dark, winding roads on his way out of Banfield. He swerves to avoid hitting a girl standing in the middle of the road and crashes into a tree. Emerging from his car, Gerry follows the barefoot, white-nightgown clad girl back to the twisted oak where she drops to her knees and passes out. Bringing her to the nearby church, Gerry discovers she’s Alice (Cricket Brown, “Dukeland”), the orphaned niece of Father Hagan (William Sadler, “Bill & Ted Face the Music”). At mass the next day, Alice rises from her seat in the front of the church, and leaves the church with young girls trailing behind her; she walks directly to the oak, and laying her hands on its trunk, speaks to the astonished crowd behind her. She has seen a vision of a woman bathed in white light, and she tells them she has seen Mary. Within days, people gather around the church asking for Alice to heal their ailments, and the Boston Diocese sends representatives to investigate. As Alice continues to hear from Mary, her fame grows, and her miraculous gifts garner more and more attention to the small town. But Gerry, on the other hand, starts having visions himself — visions of a dark hooded figure with skeletal hands, and he begins to wonder if these miracles are a different type of fabricated story, one that will have dire consequences for the townspeople . . .

Based on James Herbert’s novel The Shrine, writer/director Evan Spiliotopoulos’s The Unholy is a tale about how a young girl’s religious faith is manipulated by an evil entity, and how the adults around her desperately yearn for something good in the world, oftentimes causing them to disregard signs of trouble. Cricket Brown plays sweet devout Alice with wide-eyed wonder, and her charm shines through as the type of girl any community would immediately support as a young prophet. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is well-cast (arguably typecast) as the gruff and scruffy Gerry, a washed-up journalist who ruined his career by fabricating news stories for fame and recognition; his skepticism plays at center stage when he deals with Diocese representatives Bishop Gyles (Cary Elwes, “No Strings Attached”) and Monsignor Delgarde (Diogo Morgado, “The Killer”). They grant him exclusive access to Alice, and he plays well back and forth between the kind yet past-his-due disbeliever and shady storyteller looking to cash his way back into the business.

Brown and Morgan are skillfully supported by Sadler and Katie Aselton (“Black Rock”) who plays Dr. Natalie Gates, a woman fiercely protective of Alice. They are very believable as the adults who most care for Alice’s well-being and play wonderful contrasts to Elwes’ smarmy Bishop. When Elwes appears on screen, you are most reminded of watching “Law & Order” episodes; when a bigger name cameos, you know they’re likely to be playing the bad guy, and Elwes’s caricature-ish Massachusetts accent doesn’t help his believability. There are some bright lights in Alice’s supporters, most notably Madison LaPlante as a teenage girl who desperately needs to believe in Alice’s miracles, and Sonny and Danny Corbo who play Toby Walsh, the wheelchair-bound teenager whose sweet and shaky first steps are among Alice’s first miracles. Seeing the Corbo boys on-screen brings a special smile to my face because they’re local actors from my home state — shout-out to Little Rhody!

As a whole, The Unholy works as your standard PG-13 horror fare; there are plenty of jump scares (many of the ineffective variety) and the story unravels in the expected ways. Characters investigate the local history in cobwebbed storage areas and shadowy archive libraries, and there’s little ambiguity behind the character arcs. Each character plays out exactly as you expect them to, and the convenient revelations appear just in time to move along the story. Adult horror fans have already seen (and seen and seen) the tropes found in this film, but young teenagers will enjoy it as an early entrance into religious horror. It’s not a bad or boring film by any stretch, but it’s not something that will have much staying power in the long run.

In The Color Rose, released as “The Sinners” in the UK, writer-director Courtney Paige uses excessive lighting, dreamy music and shifts in the speed of action to create a suffusive, sensual and sinister tale of teenage rebellion gone horribly wrong. It’s not entirely successful, with some sections working better than others, but The Color Rose is discomfiting and involving in its world building and thematic expression. An early part of this establishment is the location, an isolated town surrounded by gorgeous mountains, deep forests and an ominous lake. Small wonder that the opening voiceover refers to the lake and a feeling of submergence pervades much of the film.

The location recalls the sublime in art, attempts to represent the majesty and terror of divine creation. This duality is further emphasized by the setting of a small and strictly religious town, where church and Bible study inform every part of life and sin is rigidly avoided. Except it isn’t because the film follows seven teenage girls dubbed “the Sins” by their classmates. Grace Carver (Kaitlyn Bernard, “The Professor”) is the leader of the group and the film’s antihero, dubbed Lust with a certain amount of irony, although certain sequences emphasize a sensuality in her that is almost tactile. Grace’s relationship with her family, especially her father Pastor Dean Carver (Tahmoh Penikett, “Painkillers”), is the source of considerable tension which boils over into violence that impacts the entire community. Tori Davidson (Brenna Coates, “Coroner” TV series) is Wrath, Grace’s close confidant and clandestine lover. Rich girl Katie Hamilton (Keilani Elizabeth Rose, “Woodland”) gets whatever she wants but her Greed is never satisfied. Stacey Rodgers (Jasmine Randhawa) has Envy for those around her. Molly McIvor (Carly Fawcett, “Night Sweats”), insecure about her body, comfort eats due to her Gluttony, while Robyn Pearce (Natalie Malaika, “Picture Day”) demonstrates her Sloth by coasting through school and athletics despite her natural gifts. Brenna Llewellyn (“CR: Complete Reality”) is Aubrey Miller, Pride and the narrator in a way that is, well, that would be telling.

Within their repressive community, the girls are a talking point and it is not long before they start their own little rebellion. And as you might expect, it isn’t long before things go too far. In constructing this story, Paige combines elements of teen drama, folk and occult horror. Holy verses rub shoulders with Satanic rituals, and a careless word can have severe repercussions. This is an interesting comment on religious dogma, as intolerance and judgment seem to be the watchwords of this community rather than love and forgiveness. When characters turn up dead, cries for vengeance and retribution drown out those of mourning.

The film’s presentation of teenage pranks leading to mob hysteria creates inevitable comparisons with “Heathers,” although the film lacks the strong satirical bite of that teen classic. The film is also reminiscent of “Scream” and “Mean Girls,” as well as “The Craft” with its incorporation of occult imagery. A more recent antecedent is 2018’s “Assassination Nation,” which was a scathing indictment of various social expectations. The Color Rose is less acerbic, but perhaps oddly has a warmer heart, since the girls at the center of the drama are presented as flawed and confused, trying to figure out how to be themselves when their elders regularly tell them they are not good enough. Religion works as a metaphor for gender repression here, as the girls’ school classes appear to consist of Bible study based on how well they know the material, yet it seems they can never know it well enough. The stricture on display may well provoke annoyance from disagreeing viewers, but it would be simplistic to view the film as a condemnation of religious dogma. The girls are recognizable from the genre entries as mentioned above, as much products of contemporary western society as they are of their specific niche of it. Also, the repression is largely implied rather than enforced, with nothing in the way of punishment as seen in something like “Carrie.” Thus, the notion of an expectant atmosphere and how one negotiates one’s own identity within that atmosphere is central to the film, again adding to the suffusive nature of The Color Rose.

The atmosphere of the film is its most effective element. Sometimes the style is inconsistent and a little jarring, such as Paige’s device of speeding up the action at moments of high tension. This can induce shock, but the device is used somewhat clumsily at times. More effective are the sudden inserts, such as moments of violence where we only see a little: As is often the case, suggestion can be more frightening than explication. Best of all are the slower moments, such as the girls walking through their high school with blatant disregard for their moral instructors, flesh on display as an act of defiance rather than spectacle. Speaking of display, as might be expected with a large cast like this, some of the characters receive more attention than others, with the film’s focus largely on Grace and Tori and the other girls somewhat sidelined. It is also a film of discordant narrative threads — a criminal investigation thread is somewhat mechanical, with Sheriff Fred Middleton (Aleks Paunovic, “Volition”) and Deputy Douglas Sanders (Taylor St. Pierre, “Last Night in Suburbia”) shifting from buffoonery to competency as the plot demands it. But despite these problems, The Color Rose still succeeds as an effective blend of repression, rebellion, teen terror and occult horror, largely because of the atmosphere that suffuses and discomforts the viewer.

On May 13, 1917, three children, 10-year-old Lúcia (Stephanie Gil, “Terminator: Dark Fate”) and her younger cousins Francisco (Jorge Lamelas) and Jacinta (Alejandra Howard, “Cleo” TV series) were tending their family’s flock of sheep at the Cova da Iria, the family pastureland in the Portuguese village of Aljustrel on the outskirts of Fátima, when they had a striking vision of a Lady (Joana Ribiero, “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote”) dressed in white near a small oak tree. Claiming that she came from heaven, she asks the children to return to the same place on the thirteenth day of each month for the next five months, promising that a miracle would be performed that will convince the people of the village of her appearance and receive her message of peace. She also gives the children personal messages that could only be revealed later.

Written by Barbara Nicolosi, Valerio D’Annunzio and Marco Pontecorvo and taken from Lúcia’s memoirs, Fatima, directed by Pontecorvo (“Partly Cloudy with Sunny Spells”), son of director Gillo Pontecorvo (“The Battle of Algiers”), peeks beyond the boundaries of the known in his retelling of the fact-based 1917 sighting of the Lady identified as the Virgin Mary, first brought to the screen in 1952 in “The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima.” The present story is told from the point of view of the three young children, especially that of Lúcia who bears the main task of convincing the community of the authenticity of her visions.

The film is book-ended by a fictional conversation held at the Carmelite convent in Coimbra, Portugal in 1989 between a now elderly Sister Lúcia (Sônia Braga, “Bacurau”) and Professor Nichols (Harvey Keitel, “The Irishman”), a skeptical Professor of Religion. Though the flashbacks attempt to put the visions in a modern day context, the experience of the children unfolds in real time and they deliver performances that are real and beautifully realized, especially that of Gil whose beatific smile is enough to convince us of her divine revelation. According to Pontecorvo, “Lúcia, for me, is . . . someone that can see beyond and can get in touch with another level in a way that not all of us have the possibility of doing.”

Unlike many Hollywood films in which spiritual events are artificially enhanced by CGI effects and heavenly sounding music to create a “spiritual feeling,” Pontecorvo’s depiction of the Lady is of a real woman who walks barefoot on the mud, not a fuzzy image floating in the air. Filmed entirely in Portugal by cinematographer Vincenzo Carpineta (“Let’s Talk”), Fatima creates a striking sense of place and time. It is the time of World War I and a weary world prays for peace. The villagers gather daily in the town square to listen as mayor Artur Santos (Goran Visnjic, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”) reads the names of local soldiers who have been declared dead or missing. Lúcia’s family hopefully await news from the front about Lúcia’s brother Manuel (Elmano Sancho, “The Black Book”). People struggling with the loss of a loved one receive little comfort, however, from a hardline anti-clerical government.

As Lúcia struggles to overcome the disbelief of her mother, Maria Rosa (Lúcia Moniz, “Hero on the Front”) and her father Antonio (Marco D’Almeida, “Night Train to Lisbon”), she must also deal with the outright hostility of the mayor, the local pastor Father Ferreira (Joaquim de Almeida, “The Hitman’s Bodyguard”), and the bishop (João D’Ávila, “The Easy Way”). During one of Mary’s visits at Fátima, the children experience a vision of Hell with all its accompanying charms such as an ocean of fire, devils, and shrieking souls, but the Lady tells them that her visit was a way of saving the tormented souls in Hell. Despite the children’s belief in what they had seen, they are pressured by her parents, the church, and the secular officials to recant and admit their story was just a made-up game.

On October 13th, however, a perceived miracle took place before an estimated 50,000 people who testified that the midday sun suddenly appeared like a silver disk, then began “to rotate, dance, and whirl like a pinwheel.” Wobbling across the sky, it plunged towards the earth as people screamed and looked for a place to hide and then sighed in relief and amazement as the sun re-ascended towards its rightful position in the sky. Today, the basilica of Our Lady of Fatima stands near the Cova da Iria as the Lady requested and draws thousands of visitors each year. In 2017 Pope Francis canonized Francisco and Jacinta, both of whom died in the flu epidemic of 1918, while Lúcia’s canonization is still pending.

Fatima is a lovely film that, unlike previous versions of the story, explores the inner life of the characters and portrays the Marian visits without being preachy. What the visions represent is beyond the scope of this review, yet, as Anne Baring says in her book, “The Dream of the Cosmos,” “the passionate longing of the human heart has always been to press beyond the boundaries of the known, to break through the limitations of our understanding, to extend the horizon of awareness.”

Marian apparitions as well as other visions of the “Divine Feminine,” according to a Newsweek magazine article in 1997 article, have numbered at least four hundred in the twentieth century alone and have been reported from antiquity down into modern times at times appearing as Isis, Kali, Durga, and Ishtar as well as the Virgin Mary. Fatima challenges our normal consensus view of reality and strives to evoke in us a renewed sense of mystery regardless of our religious or secular beliefs. Allowing us to see the world through a broader lens, it points us towards a new connection with the cosmos.

There is something that can be said for feel-good cinema especially one that finds comfort in faith, healing, and belief — something so strangely foreign in today’s cynical cinematic landscape. Even so, the Erwins conduct their soul-searching methods with a breezy approach that never adequately explores the realm of a blooming romance that has all the spark of an unwatered houseplant. What starts out as an earnest exploration of love and spirituality turns into a hammy slice of lovey-dovey clichés between a bland, albeit attractive, starry-eyed couple.

In any event, I Still Believe is based upon the true exploits of Christian musician Jeremy Camp (K.J. Apa, “A Dog’s Purpose”). While juggling his duties as a Bible college student on the West Coast, the Indiana-bred singer is instantly smitten when he spots the desirable Melissa Henning (Britt Robertson, “Tomorrowland”) in the audience at a musical event. He pursues, she resists, but it doesn’t take for her to give in and accept the ever growing attraction. Of course, no romantic bond is considered flawless as the treacly tandem will soon discover.

Naturally, the obligatory brush with adversity sets in for the devoted sweethearts. Conveniently, their relationship is stalled based upon a couple of major factors. First, Jeremy and Melissa must contend with a third link to their intimate union — friend and singer Jean-Luc Lajoie (Nathan Parsons, “Teeth”). For Jeremy, besides being a friend, Jean-Luc is a musical mentor of sorts for the Christian performer. For Melissa, besides friendship, Jean-Luc harbors feelings for the wholesome beauty.

Jean-Luc is not the only roadblock to compromise the committed lovebirds. It is soon revealed that poor Melissa is diagnosed with cancer. Now the couple must demonstrate their genuine admiration for each other during the difficult times that jeopardizes Melissa’s life. How will they cope with this devastating reality of illness? Will the blessed graces of Christian faith intervene and see Melissa and Jeremy through the hardship and heartaches?

Unfortunately, I Still Believe feels altogether sketchy in its depiction of loving spiritual devotion. The leads, Apa and Robertson, are appealing enough to attract youngsters to revel in their polished aura onscreen, but the hackneyed heartstrings manipulated in this unbearable weeper may prove to be too heavy-handed. Plus, the Erwin bothers seem to forgo the musical foundation of Jeremy Camp by never really delving into the creative force of the singer’s insights or ingenuity for his musical artistry. The Christian music featured feels more of an afterthought in comparison to the trite bonding between Apa’s hopeful Jeremy and Robertson’s sickly, but sweet, Melissa. Thrown into the mopey mix with head-scratching effect are Gary Sinise (“CSI: NY” TV series) and country singer-actress Shania Twain as Jeremy’s parents Tom and Teri Camp, and Melissa Roxburgh (“Star Trek Beyond”) as Melissa’s protective sister. Overall, the grating dramatics and syrupy platitudes render I Still Believe as woefully slanted as the local church steeple.

The film, Three Christs, tells the story of one Dr. Stone (Gere, “Norman”), who discovers three paranoid schizophrenic patients that all believe to be Jesus Christ. First, there’s Joseph (Dinklage, “The Boss”), a devoted-opera lover who is the most genuine (yet ill-tempered) of the trio. Next up is Clyde (Bradley Whitford, “Phil”), the eldest, who suffered a significant loss and often feels he’s unclean. And then there’s Leon (Walton Goggins, “Ant-Man and the Wasp”), the most serious of the bunch, who uses his words to cut others down. By putting the three in the same space, Stone hopes that their discussions will bring something new to the psychology table. But the road to such discoveries may be well-intentioned, but certainly aren’t without dramatic bumps.

In the first opening shots, Three Christs comes off like the most vanilla of psychiatric dramas. Think “Awakenings” but with a TV movie of the week edge. There’s a legitimately crisp indie darling look (thanks to the cinematography talents of Denis Lenoir), but every other element on-screen reads as unpolished — especially the script. Avnet and screenwriter Eric Nazarian try their best to get a grasp on the material that is the cinematic definition of tricky. On the one hand, you have to stick to what authentically took place while simultaneously keeping the audience on their toes in the middle of a therapy session. But with confusing leaps of narrative fancy, overtly disgusting dialog (mostly coming from Leon’s mouth) to baffling exposition that tries to be “woke,” the script screams for a much more skilled storyteller to grab the narrative wheel.

Yet the worst issue this script suffers from is the use of individual vital players. Take, for example, the research assistant, Becky Anderson. It is known that in real life, Ms. Anderson was involved in Rokeach’s study (mostly in helping with Leon’s case). Still, her film counterpart (Charlotte Hope, “The Nun”) seems to exist purely to be dangled in front of both Dr. Stone and Leon as a carrot of sorts, or a doggie treat — whichever phrase makes you comprehend the uncomfortable nature of her development within the plot. One particular sequence, in which Becky decides to try some mind-altering drugs, sees her hallucinating flirtations towards Stone, as his wife awkwardly comes to visit him in the office. Is she there to prove some inner flaw of Stone’s? Or is she an actual well thought out female character? Avnet and Nazarian have no clue.

But perhaps the most egregious of these choices come in the form of Dr. Stone’s arc. From the beginning, this script desperately wants us to believe that Stone is a wacky, free-thinking rebel (in that late-50’s sort of way.) He supports the likes of Lenny Bruce, has “crazy” sex with his equally attractive and intellectual wife (Julianna Margulies, “The Upside”), dabbles in LSD, and (of course) isn’t down with the G.O.D. But by the end of the movie, Stone transforms into a walking Hallmark movie lesson — the kind that will make you simultaneously want a barf bag and a box of tissues.

Stone is the representation of Rokeach himself, but there’s no real knowledge as to whether Stone mirrors his real-life counterparts’ behavior to a “T” — coming across more like a superhero adaptation of a person who had god-like delusions. History would eventually tell us that Rokeach learned from the problematic elements of his behavior towards his patients. Still, Stone’s much mushier conclusion makes it seem he didn’t have the same hurdle to overcome — resulting in his journey coming off more Hollywood than Rokeach’s story ever was.

The same can be said of the performances for everyone in the cast, which range from the typical Tinseltown examples of sleepwalking to the purest cases of try-hard. Richard Gere plays Stone like every other role he’s ever done in a courtroom drama, seeming as if he’s probably yawning after each take. The three Christs themselves each make their own “interesting” choices, with Dinklage (obviously) coming across as the best of them. Goggins tries his best at making Leon come across as charismatic (despite the disgusting dialog he has to utter), and Whitford is doing his best audition for an SNL sketch.

In fact, such a description nails the majority of Three Christs problems — everything here is too silly, too over the top, and far too dated. If there ever were a time to reach through the bag of magic that the internet has to offer, this would be the moment to select the always perfect “What Year is it!?” meme. Because if any film seems like it (unfortunately) time traveled from the same year of “Patch Adams” release, Three Christs would be it. Both creations take a true part of history and replicate it in a fashion that is seeking the mush rather than the truth, embraces the quirky as opposed to the factual, and comes across as pure sloppy filmmaking. Thankfully, at least one of them has Robin Williams in it.