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Crowe, in Italy for the Rome Film Festival,
dropped into the Vatican's small projection room - which seats
only about 50 people - to greet the audience between two
back-to-back screenings.
The film is set in New York City and Vietnam in 1967 and is
based on the true story of John "Chickie" Donahue, who brought
cans of beer from the neighbourhood watering hole to Vietnam to
lift the spirit of friends fighting there.
Donahue is played by Zac Efron and Crowe plays hardened and
hard-drinking war photographer Arthur Coates. Bill Murray plays
a crotchety and super-patriotic World War Two veteran who runs
the bar in Manhattan's Inwood neighbourhood.
The Vatican event was organised by Father Andrew Small, an
official at the Vatican's Commission for the Protection of
Minors, who has a cameo appearance playing a neighbourhood
parish priest.
"I just feel a kinship with the men here in the Vatican who are
protecting us and I thought that inviting them and friends to a
movie is what you do when you want to be friendly," Small said.
Reuters spoke to some recruits who enjoyed the film, a
comedy-drama whose backdrop is how the war deeply divided
American families, drinking buddies and society at large.
In the film Donahue also carried a rosary from a neighbourhood
mother to give to her son in Vietnam but he was killed before
Donahue could find him.
While the film was being projected on Monday, Small went to Pope
Francis' nearby residence and the pope blessed several dozen
rosaries that were given to those at the screening.
Crowe later toured St. Peter's Basilica and was given a rare,
close-up look at Michelangelo's Pieta, allowed to go behind the
bulletproof glass that seals off a side chapel where it is on
display.
(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Josie Kao)
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