Kinderman and his anger issues

While I appreciate your enthusiasm for the film, Kinderman's outbursts are a major turn-off for me. Gone is the gentle, avuncular Kinderman as originally written in the Exorcist novel; in the Exorcist screenplay; and - most imortantly - even in the new Legion novel.

In Legion, Kinderman remains the same likable, genteel (if not Gentile!), brilliant detective - as so perfectly played in the Friedkin film by Lee J. Cobb. I don't know if you've read Legion, but if you have, you are almost certainly sure to have noticed the huge discrepancy between Legion's Kinderman and Exorcist III's "Kinderman".

Instead, in Exorcist III, the real, authentic Kinderman of the novels has been replaced by a gruff, mean-spirited, short-tempered ogre, whose "random outbursts" today would probably make him the legitimate target of lawsuits. His treatment of underlings is fascistic, and so is his yelling at various strangers such as members of the hapless hospital staff. Although it can be argued that Scott is perfect for this part, it is the part itself that is inexcusable and without justification.

In fact, justification is the one and only crucial explanatory element for Kinderman's alteration that could possibly be offered. But it is not offered.

Exorcist III's Kinderman is a completely new, and unpleasant, creature. Some have tried to excuse the "new" Kinderman's various misbehaviors as the reactions of a world-weary homicide cop - a cop who is so beat down, depressed, discouraged, outraged, and despairing over all the crimes that he has investigated - and realizes that he cannot put an end to - has become a furious, alienated, snarling semi-psychopath. Just one or two lines of dialogue could have brought at least some illumination and explanation to the radical, negative changes in Kinderman's personality. Blatty's failure to explain the "new" Kinderman's bad attitudes and behavior creates, if not a plot gap, certainly a character gap - a character abyss, really. Especially in view of the fact that he made these changes to the character after he had written Legion, in which Kinderman is still the brilliantly gentle "Lee J. Cobb" character whom Blatty originally created.

This gap is, in my view, entirely inexcusable, and - along with other such incongruities as Kinderman and Karras having been "best friends" (!) - helps to make Exorcist III's screenplay the hodgepodge which it so unfortunately is. And so - I agree with you that Exorcist III's Kinderman does have anger issues - the difference being that you find them amusing and entertainingly off-the-wall; whereas I find them jarringly incompatible with the "known Kinderman", as well as silly and arbitrarily unkind, to boot.