| Overall Grade: |
A- |
|
| Story: |
N/A |
|
|
| Acting: |
N/A |
|
|
| Direction: |
N/A |
|
|
| Visuals: |
N/A |
|
|
The Apostle EF. A soldier in the army of god.
by Evan (movies profile)
Oct 11, 2007
I rented The Apostle with little knowledge of what it was about. I knew it was about religion, but knew more about the difficulties in making it. I knew it was in some stage of production for more than ten years. Was it worth it? You better believe it was.
Robert Duvall plays Euliss "Sonny" Dewey, a deeply devoted preacher, both to his mother and to The Lord. But all is not well for Sunny. His wife is unfaithful to him, and he finds out one day that his congregation has voted him out, and he isn’t welcome in the church. As a drunken mess, he tries to pick up his kids from a softball game, but his wife won’t let him. Her lover tries to take action, but ends up getting beat into a coma by Sunny. Sunny takes his car and a single bag of personal items and hits the road. He ends up meeting a preacher in a small town, Bayou Boutte, and sets up a church with him.
The Apostle boasts many great things. The story is both moving and deep. The performances from the supporting cast are great, but are overshadowed by Duvall, who arguably has never been better. The Apostle also boasts many great individual scenes. The movie opens with Sunny approaching a semi-conscious man in a car wreck, and asking him to put his faith in The Lord. There are many great scenes of Duvall preaching, he is like a televangelist, only bona-fide. There is a great scene of him baptizing himself and becoming the Apostle EF instead of Sunny. And the movies best scene is when the Apostle and his congregation, which is mostly black, stand up to some racist thugs led by Billy Bob Thornton.
Since this was written, directed, produced by and stars Robert Duvall, this is his movie. You can feel his emotion in it like very few movies. Since Duvall was in five of what are considered the best movies of the 70's, Godfather I and II, the Conversation, Network, and Apocalypse Now, he will never be forgotten, but he certainly faded in the 80's and 90's. His portrayal of The Apostle EF here is certainly among his best work, rivaling all the above movies in acting quality.
The Apostle is a great movie for anyone to see. It is appropriate for anyone, and contains great amounts of emotion and power. Sunny is a very interesting character, and since he is so interesting and well acted by Duvall, the length of The Apostle will bother only those who lack attention spans. With so many great things going for it, The Apostle is a must see. ***1/2(Out of ****) |
My Public Profile 
