THE APOSTLE (75)

Directed by: Robert Duvall

Starring: Robert Duvall, Farrah Fawcett, Billy Bob Thornton

The Pitch: Deserted by his wife and on the run from the police, a disgraced preacher tries to start up a new church in a small Louisiana community.

Theo Sez: A little more irony might've been welcome here, maybe a little more ambivalence about its extraordinary, possibly insane hero (the feelgood coda played over the end credits, showing him unbowed even on a chain-gang, seems especially misjudged) ; then again, maybe irony is exactly what this tale of religious passion doesn't need. Like Duvall's implacably self-possessed preacher it's all about steely, unflinching determination, which above all - even more than the utterly hypnotic rhythms - is why the church scenes are so electrifying : to have mocked or criticised - even to have stated the obvious, that the simultaneous translation of a sermon into Spanish looks ridiculous, or that a crowd of men raising their fists in unison as they yell "Jesus!" looks extremely creepy - would've destroyed everything, but the film pushes past all that, caring only about the fervour of trying (even if absurdly or misguidedly) to get close to God : it's exhilaratingly un-hip, so naive it's positively clear-eyed. Except that it's not naive either : it knows the Apostle's congregation is mostly uneducated, and / or going to church mostly for the distraction, and it sees the unpleasant edge to his intensity (he's a salesman, a businessman - and, significantly, he doesn't get the girl) ; but it also knows that to insist on this kind of arrogant, charismatic, utterly obsessed man destroying himself - to say that he must destroy himself, like Captain Ahab or the characters in Paul Theroux books like "The Mosquito Coast" or "Millroy the Magician" - is as absurd as his own inflexible notions of what is and is not "God's will". The film prefers a more laid-back, more humanistic worldview - one where racist sons-of-bitches prove surprisingly vulnerable, Good is as rare as Evil, and being vain, bull-headed and a pain in the ass can amount to a state of grace. As a film it's no more than above-average - too long and episodic, and it definitely sags in the middle ; as an insight - into a certain culture, and the nature of Faith - it's as rich and profound as anything this year.