Just 4 Years After ‘Superman,’ Christopher Reeve Made This 0% Rotten Tomatoes Disaster

The legacy of Christopher Reeve will always be synonymous with his four cinematic Superman installments from 1978 to 1987. Though he was recognized worldwide for his sensitive portrayal of the Man of Steel, Reeve struggled to find acceptance for his acting gifts outside the beloved DC Comics superhero. The actor made noble efforts to stretch his range in underrated dramas, including Deathtrap, Somewhere in Time, and Street Smart. But, of all the non-Superman pictures released during his tenure with the franchise, Reeve’s most controversial film, 1982’s Monsignor, turned out to be the biggest career mistake.

Based on the 1976 novel by Jack-Alain Léger, Monsignor predated the recent Oscar contender Conclave in its depiction of politics surrounding the Roman Catholic Church. Going against the wholesome Superman image that made him a hero to children, Reeve tackled the role of an ambitious priest, who broke almost every cardinal sin in his rise to the top of the Vatican. Despite its powerhouse ensemble with Fernando Rey (The French Connection), Jason Miller (The Exorcist), and Genevieve Bujold (Tightrope), critics lambasted Monsignor for taking a cynical stance on the church as a corrupted institution. Standing at a 0% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, not even a powerful score by the legendary John Williams can elevate Monsignor to being an instant classic.

‘Monsignor’ is a Cynical Take on the Church

Directed by Frank Perry (Mommie Dearest), Monsignor is set during World War II, when a Brooklyn priest named Father Flaherty (Reeve) gets enlisted to be an army chaplain. Caught in the line of fire upon witnessing the death of a young soldier (Joe Pantoliano), Flaherty breaks protocol by taking a .50 caliber machine gun to kill Nazi soldiers. Though he’s reprimanded for his actions, Flaherty gets reassigned to the Vatican to assist Cardinal Santoni (Rey) in using his accounting abilities to resolve the church’s financial issues.

Flaherty does not take legitimate measures to fundraise for the church, however. With the help of his Brooklyn gangster pal Lodo Varese (Joseph Cortese) and mafia boss Don Appolini (Miller), he entangles the Vatican in a black market operation involving the sale of American cigarettes. As Flaherty gains increasing influence within the ranks of the church, he engages in an unethical relationship with a spiritually distraught nun (Bujold) who is unaware of his priesthood. Then his fundraising schemes go south, leading to financial troubles that put the priest at odds with the church and the mob.

Monsignor is a slow-burning drama with plenty of crime elements, yet lacking the thrills. Its dark take on the Vatican predates The Godfather Part III, with Francis Ford Coppola’s disappointing third installment seeing the Corleone Family bail out the cash-strapped church, but Monsignor takes the melodramatic route by putting the focus on the provocative nature of Reeve’s character with several subplots that follow his passive religious rule-breaking.

Other controversial church-themed films narrow their scope to one subject: Conclave was about the internal struggle for the Pope’s position. Doubt and Spotlight examined sexual abuse in the church. But, in tackling multiple issues, including a financial scandal with the church, mob thriller tropes, and a shoehorned love story, Monsignor struggles to find a clear message. Is it about a man corrupting the system or vice versa? In either case, it’s a cynical take on the Catholic Church, that suggests that the institution is entirely corrupt.

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Christopher Reeve Can’t Save ‘Monsignor’ From a Bad Script

Christopher Reeve as Father Flaherty in cardinal attire in Monsignor.

As hard as he tries in the film, Reeve’s clean personality did not mesh with a morally corrupt protagonist depicted as a man of God. At age 30 during Mosignor’s production, the actor was still young and fresh-eyed with plenty of experience in the theater scene and, despite Reeve’s talents, he lacked the depth to make Flaherty compelling in his unholy actions. Part of the legendary actor’s struggle in the film is the weak screenplay, because the true motivations of Flaherty’s hunger for power and influence are never detailed within the narrative. Reeve just casually makes business transactions with the mob like a Wall Street stockbroker and never questions the morality of his actions over time.

Adding to Reeve’s struggles on screen is the forbidden romance with Bujold’s nun, a subplot that feels entirely forced into Monsignor to break from the dull church and mob storylines. The motivation for his attraction to Bujold is never explained, and their painful scenes together do nothing to elevate the drama of the film. Much of the subplot is spent with Flaherty struggling to tell the nun the truth about his priesthood, with neither Reeve nor Bujold seeming to know exactly how they’re supposed to be delivering each scene. Indeed, every grand, provocative moment to make Reeve look like he’s stretching his range ends up falling flat because every scene in Monsignor is surface-level imagery.

The racy depiction of the church in Monsignor was something that caused Reeve to distance himself from the movie a year after its release. In a 1983 interview with Bobbie Wygant, Reeves recalled that the film suffered from making “serious allegations about a religious figure,” before failing to prove such claims. Thankfully, Reeve is humble enough to recognise his mistakes, because watching Monsignor is a slog, being an exploitative drama that never manages to be emotionally gripping in the least. Reeve should have stuck to Superman.