When this biographical film was made in 1988, it was clearly intended to be a praiseworthy study of the famed Italian saint, Don Bosco, founder of the Salesians, one of today's largest religious orders in the Catholic Church. It is that but sadly it is also rather poorly written, directed, and acted. The movie's star, Ben Gazzara, was 58 years old at the time of this film's creation, far too old to play most of the scenes, all of which, for some reason, appear until the very last few moments to have been set within a period of several months instead of the nearly forty years that they actually occurred historically. Certainly part of the problem that exists is that the film was made in Italy with, for the most part, Italian actors but then dubbed, very poorly, into English. The writers have also added, I suppose in the hope of attracting a wider audience, a minor romantic, but totally unnecessary, subplot which, though realistically filmed, does nothing to advance the story of the saint.
Is this movie worth watching? For the faithful, absolutely, but when compared to the newer Italian film of the same name starring the excellent Italian actor, Flavio Insinna in the role of the saint (called Saint John Bosco: Mission to Love in the United States), it comes in as a very weak second. If one can only watch one of the two films, this newer 2004 version is without question the one to see. If only the Ben Gazzara is available, however, no one will "go wrong" sitting through the almost two hours it takes to see it in its entirety.
