"We're going to have a Holy Ghost explosion!" preacher Euliss Dewey exclaims halfway through "The Apostle," and this statement cannily summarizes the character's sometimes laughable and sometimes frightening approach to his religious calling. Euliss is a man who believes in God because he was told to do so as a boy and never once looked back. His spiritual devotion is unwavering and, in several regards, it seems thoughtless.
In a telling flashback that comes early in the film, the audience is shown a 12-year-old Euliss preaching for an entire congregation. The young man's preaching style reeks of practice and effort, relying more on theatrics and conditioning rather than real heart. When Euliss grows up, the theatrics remain intact, but, unlike most other recent celluloid evangelists, Euliss actually believes everything he is saying. It just does not appear that way.
The film's peculiar approach to its main character is exhilarating. Played by Robert Duvall, Euliss is given an over-arching earnestness that makes it difficult to characterize him as a hypocrite or huckster even though the audience will doubtlessly feel tempted to do so.
Euliss is sincere in his devotion but is at the same time capable of violence and ignorance. Early in the film, he strikes his adulterous wife's lover on the head with a baseball bat, and, anticipating a police investigation, he flees town and fakes his own suicide. He sets up camp in a backwoods community and builds a new chapel from the bottom up.
This scenario makes it even more difficult to believe Euliss's heavy-handed preaching, but the conviction behind his faith is never called into question. The audience is slowly made to understand that Euliss's devotion is genuine even though it takes the form of hooey. The film answers questions to Euliss's faith by asserting that he thinks that he is for real and that that is enough.
What makes the scenes themselves so complicated and strong is the utter lack of irony in the direction of this film. Duvall, who also wrote the screenplay, injects plenty of irony in situations and events, but as a director, he never magnifies the contradictions within the work.
The lack of judgment and perspective that the film places on its own scenes forces the audience to confront its own preconceptions of religion and form its own opinion of Euliss himself. This is not as easy as it sounds, and Duvall complicates matters by delivering a performance with so many shadings that a complete analysis of his character seems impossible.
Euliss is a pest, a flirt, a salesman and a genuine believer. He is also not extremely bright. He has his moments, but he usually acts purely on impulse. His lack of thought, of course, throws the value of his faith into question. This film is a character study without a clear-cut main character, and it takes a talented actor to make this fly. Duvall is up to the challenge; he delivers a performance that is amazingly detailed yet requires the audience to do a lot of interpretive work.
Duvall, an incredibly unbiased actor, manages to fit perfectly into this man's skin without having made a judgment of who he is.
While other actors register strongly, especially John Beasely as Brother Blackwell, the film is strongly Duvall-centered. The film's only real flaw is that it does not allow some of its supporting cast to stay on screen long enough to make an impression. Miranda Richardson and Billy Bob Thorton are both wonderfully gifted actors and they have some very good scenes in the film, but their characters seem functional rather than individuals in their own right. While Duvall obviously wanted Euliss to take center stage, giving a little bit more to the other actors would not have hurt.
This is a minor complaint, however, and "The Apostle" is overall extremely impressive. Despite its sometimes too-slow pace there are no unnecessary scenes or dialogue in the entire film. When the movie draws to a close audiences are left with more questions than answers.
If this sounds like "The Apostle" asks a lot from filmgoers, it is because it does. This is challenging stuff, but once you consider the sentimental dreck television has to offer on this subject, a challenge may not seem like such a bad thing. There are no busybody angels here, and we are instead treated to something much more insightful and worthwhile. Thank God for that.
