Deadline's review from the Venice Film Festival covers "Father Joe," a deliberately over-the-top action thriller written by Luc Besson and directed by Barthélémy Grossmann, starring Kiefer Sutherland as a gun-toting priest waging war on New York's drug trade. The film is presented as a knowing throwback to the ultra-violent beat-'em-up genre of the 1990s, blending mob movie tropes with religious iconography and absurdist plotting, and marks a notable genre outing for its starry cast, including Al Pacino as a rival crime boss.

The plot follows Father Joe, a war veteran turned vigilante priest, who infects drug dealers with a homemade virus, forcing them to attend weekly Communion at his church for a temporary antidote to stay alive. When mob boss Giu (Pacino) investigates a dip in his takings, he too is infected but proves more resourceful than his underlings, setting up a wider conflict as the story pivots into a subplot involving missing children and a hospital allegedly trafficking organs. The review notes Ever Anderson, daughter of Milla Jovovich, as a supporting "sidekick" character, and frames the film's sprawling, comic-book-like plotting as reminiscent of 1970s TV show "Kung Fu," concluding that the film delivers deliriously violent action in the Besson tradition.