Rating: 
Summary: Inspirational and uplifting
Review: I'm not a Christian yet and I don't watch that many religious-type movies, but I have to admit I was real impressed with "The Apostle." Robert Duvall gives one of the best performances any actor has ever given in any movie. He is convicted of a violent act and goes on the road trying to get himself a place to preach. All the while, he gains support from friends, and even a few that are against him at first, for getting his own institution for preaching. Robert Duvall will make you think that he's really a preacher in real life by his performance. After watching this movie, I told everybody I knew that they should watch it cause it's a great movie. It made me want to learn more about Christianity and Jesus. Now I subscribe to a few devotionals in order to do so. If you're a Christian, there's not any doubt that you'll like this movie. I think most non-Christians like myself who keep an open mind about religion will also like it. It's one of the most inspirational and uplifting movies of all time. I think it's worth getting any day of the year.
Rating:
Summary: Duvall's rebuttal to ANY Scarlet Letter movie...I've seen.
Review: Both The Apostle EF and Dimmsdale, the preacher in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, commit capital crimes that neither believes is right. Neither tries to subvert the law's consequences; each understands man's evil nature and how his calling, and further study of his calling damns him further. But The Apostle's crime is not adultery, as Dimmsdale's is. Instead, Duvall inverts Hawthorne by presenting a character that is both like Dimmsdale, the minister (though Dimmsdale is a studied Calvinist and EF is more emotional, pentacostal), and like Chillingsworth, the wronged spouse. But unlike Chillingsworth, EF does not have a penchant for revenge--as Chillingsworth does (Chillingsworth is the incarnation of guilt anyway)--nor does EF have the benefit of a Christian society that would exact the death penaltly for adultery. (Hester is saved this fate in the Scarlet Letter because the Puritan elders have no evidence that her spouse is still alive.) So Duvall takes the Scarlet Letter and updates it to contemporary times. A remarkable work. Any man who has his life's work and love taken from him--along with his children--can be understandably pushed to rage. And in this sense, EF is a much more sympathetic character than Dimmsdale. But both characters are thoroughly respectable since neither has any inclination to justify his crime. And each has a drive to fulfill a divinely inspired calling. Remarkable work. How the literate Duvall's stomach must have turned to star in a bastardized, soft core porn version of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter. Thank goodness he had a chance to redeem himself in this remarkable work.
Rating: 
Summary: Not as masterful as Bresson
Review: I caught Robert Duvall's "The Apostle" (and as writer, director, producer and star it really is HIS film). The video, which picked up the Best Feature prize at the Independent Spirit Awards, is worthy of your attention. Duvall stars as "Sonny", a Southern preacher living in Texas. He's married and has two kids (often referred to as "my beauties") and frequently travels on the revival circuit. But something's not right with his marriage. His wife Jessie (Farrah Fawcett) wants out and has taken to spending the night with another man. He also loses his church, where he's been Pastor for a number of years. Frustrated, he becomes violent and whacks Jessie's boyfriend on the head with a baseball bat - an injury the guy ultimately dies from. Sonny then flees, dumps his car into a river and chucks his wallet. Baptizing himself as God's apostle (hence the title), he starts a new life - willing to go wherever God leads. Taking a beat up old shell of a church - and working odd jobs to finance it's resurrection - he forms a new congregation in a small town in Louisiana. There he's only known as "E.F." or "Apostle", which allows him to continue dodging the cops. "The Apostle" reminded me a little of another terrific Duvall film, "Tender Mercies" (that one also took place in Texas). In that one Duvall played a broken-down country singer who was once great and found redemption working for a young widow. Here he's a fugitive looking to God for redemption. In both films there's a baptism. "The Apostle" contains some remarkable scenes. One involves Billy Bob Thornton, who plays a troublemaker. This character, however, is not well-established (he shows up in the credits without a name, simply as "Troublemaker") and becomes a mere pawn of the plot. The other stand-out scene is the ending, which is certainly memorable. Duvall also gives an admirable self-directed performance.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: Robert Duvall's performance as Sonny in 'The Apostle' is absolutely amazing--there is never a moment where he falters. As the star, director, and screenwriter, he basically holds the film together. The supporting players are just as realistic & poignant--including a surprisingly understated turn by Farrah Fawcett & a touching scene with Billy Bob Thorton. 'The Apostle' is a shamefully underlooked movie. Those who are wary should ignore the religious sentiment & the Duvall 'labor-of-love' shtick.
Rating:
Summary: Good
Review: When an actor writes a screenplay, it's usually "Uh, oh" time. But Duvall wrote a pretty decent screenplay (not great), and directed well, too. He directed the actors wonderfully, so that even Farah Fawcett comes across well! Getting a natural performance out of her is no mean feat. What in God's name inspired Duvall to cast her in the first place! Well, it was a decent choice. She did a good job. And the movie kept my interest most of the way, (I admit to fast-forwarding through some of the preaching scenes. And the last preaching scene goes on forever!) But over-all, it was a fine movie. Although I DON'T really like the Dostoevsky morality. Dostoevsky (especially in CRIME AND PUNISHMENT) loved to have a violent murderer have some inverted spiritual qualities. It's almost a "radical chic" kind of morality. I don't buy it. But it makes for a good dramatic device, and worked here.
Rating:
Summary: A Summit Film on American Spirituality
Review: This is one of those great works of art that are understood according to the opinions and ideals with which the viewer or reader interprets it, the various "standards" or "truths" to which it conforms or from which it deviates. If you are a Pentecostal, you will look at this one way. If you are an atheist, you will look at it another. If you are a person drawn to the discipline of comparative religion, you will look at it yet another. And so on. But putting aside for a moment the meaning or moral of this film, just look at Duvall's cinematic art alone. What you have is brilliant story-telling here, especially in the first 45 minutes of this fable of redemption and the meaning of spiritual conviction and religious experience, of sin and salvation. They take my breath away, every time I see those first dozen scenes or so, which so beautifully portray the religious life and ideals of Pentecostal Christians and so superbly drop in place the pieces of the story that we need to get to the heart of the matter later on. There is overwhelmingly raw power, too, in those opening scenes, from the tender opening of the young man in the wrecked car whispering his desire to be born again, to the strikingly subtle and perfectly acted scene of Sonny (Robert Duvall) confronting his wife (Farrah Fawcet) about her desire for a divorce, to the rapid and shocking scene of Sonny pounding his wife's lover in the head with his kid's baseball bat, so expressive of Sonny's headlong recklessness. And what of those moving scenes of Pentecostal preaching mixed in with all this? Those several scenes, moving past quickly with utterly masterful brush-strokes, penetrate the spiritual substance of Sonny's life with great precision and marvelously portray the vigor of Pentecostal spirituality. After Sonny commits his crime, the film settles down to simple storytelling for a good long time, and the story and the telling are as good as anything you've seen in years. But much of this section of the film is much sweeter and more gentle (though no less profound and moving). The rawness, the intensity, the weighty sense of being in the presence of unseen powers, inside and outside the human mind, doesn't come out again until Sonny starts preaching his final sermon near the end of the film, and then it all comes bursting into life with an authority and depth of meaning that I have witnessed on film seldom, if ever. This is a great movie. Don't trust the three-star reviews in the various video books. This is one of the best ever made. It is also a great study of the religious dynamism of Pentecostalism that is almost beyond imaging in cinema. Finally, the final scene, the one under the credits, is one of the finest scenes in the history of film, in my opinion. I would like to tell Duvall to get rid of the credits and let the scene stand alone. Sonny is on a prison chain-gang cutting brush at the side of a southern road, and even there he's still preaching and praising, now to his fellow inmates. The artistic brilliance of those few moments is beyond description. They are nearly perfect, as perfect as a single scene can be, as deep as film can speak, for in those moments the meaning of the film is distilled into a single dramatic sequence and elevated to an even greater level of understanding and power. My jaw just hangs open watching Duvall hack at the weeds and preachify. I think of so many things during that scene. I have seen my own life flash through my mind watching it. There are a few minor things that I don't like in the film, perhaps most of them for mere personal reasons. They aren't worth talking about.
Rating:
Summary: Highly moving performances
Review: Robert Duvall's "Apostle" is a deeply moving portrait of a man's struggle to maintain a relationship with God and be a faithful servant, despite many obstacles and character flaws that he encounters and possesses. At first, I thought "Sonny" was a bit shallow and pompous; then, when I saw him sitting in the pup tent, nothing left to his name, in deep meditation and anger and sorrow, I began to pity him. By the end of the movie, I had really begun to sympathize with Sonny's situation and realize that he was a man who did indeed take his calling to the ministry seriously--in his own way. To me, the most emotional part of the entire movie occurred when Sam (Walt Goggins) accepted Christ as his saviour, and stepped forward. I don't know what Goggins felt or thought during that scene, but it must have been profound. All in all, an incredibly emotional movie.
Rating:
Summary: Apostle - a winner
Review: What can you say about Robert Duvall - he is great in this film. For once, Hollywood didn't make a movie that lampooned or demonized "born agains" or "evangelists" as so often happens. This was not an Elmer Gantry story, this was a movie about a man who sincerely believed in what he was doing. He took responsibility for his actions and even though he killed a man out of anger he understood that he needed to atone for his actions. When caught, he took responsibility for his crime, and continued to evangilize even when in prison. The movie had a great story line and whether you believe or not, that's not the point of the story. The point is that Duvalls character believed, and he acted in accordance with his faith. To me this should have been the best picture of the year, not that cartoon called "Titanic"
Rating:
Summary: lord, i'm confused. i truly am, lord!
Review: 'the apostle' reminds me of when my brother and i took a flashlight apart and got it to make lightning rhythms; we concocted an entire presentation of frankenstein around it for our parents. the best part was the lightning. seems like duvall knew he did a mean preacher and figured it should be in a movie. great acting, but this didn't ring my movie bells very much. almost nodded off during one of the services. hey, just like in real life...maybe it WAS a great movie! seriously, there's a chance this movie's seemingly bland story went over my head, but i think the same story could've been directed much better. would like everything the same but with david lynch directing instead of duvall. how much will they charge me for that?
Rating:
Summary: One of Duvall's finest works
Review: Robert Duvall is certainly one of the finest actors in American cinema. "The Apostle" is without question a testament to his superior talents. This is a powerful and dramatic movie. Unlike many movies that revolve around religion or religious themes, this did not feel like one that "preaches" to you, nor is it one that parodies or trashes religion. That in and of itself is remarkable in movies today, and I give Mr. Duvall enormous credit for achieving that in his writing and directing. Quite simply, it was a movie where an actor - Duvall - literally mesmerized you, and one that just sticks with you for a few days after watching it. Mr. Duvall has the ability to play a role in such a way as to make you truly believe that he is that person, whether it be the gung-ho leader of a air cav unit, a country singer, or, in this case, a preacher. Not all actors can pull it off as deftly or as superbly as he can. Mr. Duvall's performance should have won him the Oscar. He was up against Jack Nicholson (for "As Good As It Gets") that year, but after seeing that movie and "The Apostle", there is no question in my mind that the Oscar voters got it wrong. At any rate, this movie is certainly worth viewing and owning.
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