The Apostle

I didn't grow up down South, or even in the midwest, but I do know a little bit about the Pentacostal Church and Christian fundamentalism. Robert Duvall is an ambitious actor and film maker, and The Apostle hits home with its perceptive and loving portrayal of country people in the United States. It is refreshing to see that culture portrayed as something other than gaggles of yahoos. The Apostle focuses on the community spirit of the church, and thereby shatters some of the mystery of its appeal in a culture as self-centered as our own. There are no saints in this story, just a protagonist and his supporters trying to make sense of a country in which there is little love and way too much usury. The film is harsh on a number of levels, very no-nonsense though drawn out at various moments. But it's real, and that's more than can be said for ninety per cent of what passes for films about U.S. culture these days. It's said by some folks that Robert Duvall has been trying to make this film for a lot of years, and there are parts of The Apostle that contain faint echoes of his 1983 project Tender Mercies. It hardly matters, since both are interesting films for different reasons. Some day we'll see Robert Duvall as the vast repository of Americana he really is, until then, The Apostle is one of the best testimonies to his strengths that I know of. Can I get a witness?

Superior acting and a plot based on realism make this a classic movie of actual southern life ... a life that I experienced as a child and adolescent. Duvall's evangelist portrayal is not only convincing but eerie in the way it so fully represents many southern ministers of the gospel ... be they true believers or be they charlatans. I can't help but wonder if the cast was comprised of local folks ... or at least folks reared in the south ... rather than professional actors. They all did an excellent job contributing to the realism of this movie. I almost always enjoy a movie that "tells it like it is" ... and sofar, this is one of the most enjoyable I have ever seen.

My husband and I have loved this movie since we saw it the first four or five times. After recently buying a DVD and getting The Apostle in DVD we found a new since of excitement. The director's insights given have enriched the movie and given it deeper personality. Here is a few thoughts to help capture this wonderful creation

Eulis `Sonny' Dewey is a Southern Pentecostal Holiness Evangelist and Preacher from Texas living a seemingly happy life with his wife Jessie and his two `beauties' (children). Suddenly his flashy, hyped world comes apart: Jessie is having an affair with youth minister Horace. Sonny gets drunk, enraged and hits Horace with a baseball bat, putting him into a coma in which he later dies. Sonny escapes town, takes a new name, `The Apostle E.F.', and goes to Louisiana. He starts to work as a mechanic for local radio station owner, Elmo, and Elmo lets him preach on the radio. E.F. starts to preach everywhere: on the radio, on the streets, and with his new friend, Reverend Blackwell, he starts a campaign to renovate an old church. Along the way he wants to have an affair with Elmo's secretary `Toosie,' and all the time he is preaching, he knows his time is running out. His past sins are catching up with him and so is the law.

The character of Sonny is developed in every scene. Each scene reveals another complex part of Sonny's character. One scene will show his humility and the next shows his pride. These contradictions of, sanctification versus earthiness, generosity versus possessiveness, and open affability versus anger are developed to show the complexity in Sonny's character. Robert Duvall's sense of evil is simple and forgiving (things most all people deal with). Robert Duvall constantly explores how good a human can be and how much good he can do when `sold out' to God. His personal communication scenes with Jesus make his character seem vulnerable, open, and honest.

The Apostle is set in a Southern, God Fearing, Right Wing, Conservative, setting. Even though Sonny has had a `womanizing' problem in the past, the morality is certainly conveyed as an absolute and conservative religious morality. This is a community of a small group that belongs to Jesus and Sonny's `little church'. Since the Southern Pentecostal Church, containing both Blacks and Whites together is, not a stereotype, The Apostle is developing new territory in genre definition. The ideas of feminism or gay liberation are hardly understood in this rural religious Southern setting. Morality and fidelity are high on their social standards. However, overeating and gluttony are accepted weaknesses. Getting drunk is one weakness that most of the men have had in their younger rebellious days.

The charismatic, convincing, conniving, and calculating Sonny describes a most entertaining and flawed `Man of God'. The theme of an uneasy co-existence of the holy part of Sonny, with his flesh, is brought to film for the first time. The protagonist Sonny is the most authentic portrayal of a Southern Pentecostal Holiness Evangelist/Preacher with almost every other word being, `Praise the Lord,' `Hallelujah', `Amen,' `Thank you, Jesus,' which all come from his heart.

The other (earthly) side of Sonny is aptly convincing. Earthy examples are: his description of his womanizing to his wife, his drunken fight, (where he strikes his wife's lover with a baseball bat), and his cruelly dragging his wife off the ball field by her hair, and showing his obvious drunkenness, anger and cruelty when he blew up. Another subtle example is when he is doing his charismatic preaching on the radio, while the secretary is watching his intensity, and he follows it by preaching to her, (meanwhile, there is this calculating sales pitch with sexual sub-text between the two people).

A subtle but revealing example of Sonny's character is shown by Duvall's acting in two `sales-like, asking for the order' scenes. The first scene takes place where Sonny and the secretary have had several encounters and Sonny is trying to get into her life, house, and bedroom. After a couple of hot intense smothering kisses, Sonny keeps saying, `Come on now,' for his closing `pitch', to which she keeps answering, `Next time'. The other is in the closing scenes of the movie inside the `One Way Road to Heaven' church. Sonny and members are having an `altar call', and have been singing, `Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling', and as a final plea to a parishioner to accept Jesus into his life, Sonny keeps using his sales phrase `Come on now!' Even though the words are previously used for his earthly desires, in this scene he captures his passion to perfection and his tears are genuine as he pleads with all his heart.

In my mind, I can describe Robert Duvall's Academy Award deserving character acting as a poignant, perplexing, portrayal of a paradoxical, problematic, passionate, preacher. Even though I could also choose Jack Nicholson's role in `As Good As It Gets'(who won the Oscar), the depth and breadth of Nicholson's acting don't measure up to the job done by probably America's greatest actor, Robert Duvall. I believe this technique of documentary style filmmaking places the burden of carrying the movie on the acting and solely on Robert Duvall's Academy Award winning shoulders, and he delivers

I absolutely loved this movie and strongly recommended people in my own ministry to rent the video. From the very beginning you can tell this was not a "Hollywood movie" with the stereotypical preacher. It seems in the past, either the minister or priest is depicted as either the saintly sinless man (i.e. Father Flanagan in Boys Town) or as some perverse twisted child molester or monster. This simply portrays a man who loves God and His people with a pure heart but is a human being, subject to fall and make mistakes the same as anyone else. I especially enjoyed the flavor the extras gave the movie, as you could tell they were real people and not actors. The sound track to this movie was an added delight featuring a fine taste of Southern Gospel for us who have not been exposed to this kind of music too much. Put an Amen on it brother and give it a hearty hand clap for the Lord! : )

You can't help but being mesmerized by Robert Duvall in the title role. He must of seen a lot of southern preachers as he grew up, because he wrote this as well and the role suited him to a tee.

The supporting cast is fine, with Rick Dial and John Beasley getting kudos for their work, but the movie is first and foremost about The Apostle. If you like Robert Duvall as an actor, you will like this movie. His attention to detail in his roles is well known. He brings quirks and nuances to help flesh out his characters, and this role is no different.

The Apostle is a flawed man who can lift others up, but has trouble lifting himself up. And that contradiction is what gives this movie its flavor. All-in-all, a fine movie.