written and directed by

John Beasley Brother Blackwell

Billy Bob Thornton Thug

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If one thing is clear about the Oscar competition this year, it’s that Robert Duvall will hallelujah, praise God and can I have an Amen? all the way to the stage as the winner in the Best Actor category. And by the power’s vested in me and in the name of the Lord he should get it for his thoroughly convincing and steady performance as the troubled preacher Sonny in The Apostle.

Duvall’s performance clearly carries the movie. Unfortunately, The Apostle which Duvall penned and directed himself starts to grow a little thin when Sonny’s excessive sermonizing begins to echo in your head until you almost find yourself ready to shout out a healthy Amen!

This really only goes to show that all the hype over Duvall’s performance is hardly overestimated. And if Duvall didn’t play Sonny so well, the endless preaching would surely have dropped The Apostle off at the mediocre pool with the rest of last year’s could-have-beens.

Instead, we get a character study of a vile Texas preacher who despite his devotion to Jesus and his faith cannot ever seem to turn the other cheek. His wife Jessie (Farrah Fawcett) has just left him, and to further his plight, the congregation that Sonny created has given him the boot in favor of Jessie’s new love interest, Horace.

The turmoil for Sonny builds until he loses control. A seemingly harmless softball game turns into the stage that sets the scene for Sonny’s rage against his wife and her lover. Duvall’s direction really stands out as Sonny slowly walks away from his deed unsure to face the punishment or high tail it out of there.

Avoiding jail, Sonny decides to skip town, and through what he calls the word of God ends up in a small Louisiana town where he begins to set up The One Way Road to Heaven church. Sonny baptizes himself as The Apostle E.F. and gains the trust of the townspeople through his relentless preaching and surface goodness.

Once established, Sonny falls for Toosie (Miranda Richardson), the secretary at the garage where he works to save money for his new congregation. The scenes between the two are awkward because of Sonny’s own inability to hide his licentious flaws.

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But Sonny’s followers are the only ones that don’t get to see any of his bad side, and when he is around the people of his church he becomes a likable character. One such scene is the encounter with a melancholy racist thug (Billy Bob Thornton) who is so disturbed by Sonny’s goodness that he tries to bulldoze the church.

Duvall doesn’t make a definite statement about preachers either good or bad but focuses on the fact that they are only human even those that think they have a direct line to Jesus’ living room phone. The messenger of God side of Sonny is truly pure, but it’s the human side where Sonny is ill-fated and almost evil.

It took 10 years of shopping around before Duvall could make this project, probably because it has about as much pop culture in it as my grandmother’s antique collection. And people myself included may complain about constantly being preached at. But Duvall’s performance sincerely is one that will make you take another look at evangelism even if you already dismiss it as bogus.