Review of The Apostle (1997) by Anthony S — 05 Jan 2004

New year, another crop of movies to look forward to. Actually, not much is drawing my attention so far this year, the exceptions being "The Day After Tomorrow" and "Van Helsing". I'm not too excited about the new Spider-Man, as I thought the first was vastly overrated, and one more Shrek is probably too much of a good thing. Alien vs. Predator has potential, but I'm not too confident. "I Robot" may be interesting, but the sci=fi film I"m looking foward to the most, just because it looks so weird, is "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow". This has the look of a 1950s serial, I'd be intrigued if it managed to be successful, despite looking fairly cheesy.

I did, however, see "The Apostle" this weekend on DVD. Robert Duvall gives a masterful performance as a preacher, having committed a crime of passion, fleeing the law yet trying to find redemption in his own way. Instead of the old washed up Jack Nicholson getting the Oscar that year for "As Good As It Gets", it should have been Duvall. Then again, he should have also won for his role in "The Great Santini". Then again, that year he was up against Robert De Niro for "Raging Bull".