Review of The Apostle (1997) by Jason V — 27 Jun 2012
Robert Duvall is the heart and soul of The Apostle, preaching, crying, yelling and using all of his acting skills to convince us he is a southern preacher (with no relation to any of his other roles). This is a personal project for Duvall-he wrote, stars, and directs-and it shows; it is unabashedly about religion and could only have been made outside the studio system.
It takes a great leap of faith to buy into Duvall's Sonny communicating with a higher power since we can't see one part of that conversation and that may be, for me, the movie's greatest failing.
He says God is leading him...yet how do we know? It's most likely not fair to ask that question since the entire premise of The Apostle relies on faith in what we can not see. The film carefully skirts most of the cliched issues one would expect to find in this story, though we do have the stereotypical racist, a late conversion and all that assorted hokum.
But it's so well done on all sides it almost doesn't feel stereotypical. Almost.
This review of The Apostle (1997) was written by Jason V on 27 Jun 2012.
The Apostle has generally received positive reviews.
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