His face is crinkly and worn. His smile is warm, his eyes alternately cheerful and icy. He is a mass of contradictions. But when Texas Pentecostal preacher Euliss F. “Sonny” Dewey (Robert Duvall) — the hero-sinner of “The Apostle” — stands up to preach, something otherworldly seems to take over. A fire ignites behinds his eyes. His arms stretch in ecstasy. His neck cranes heavenward. Great whoops of joy (“Holy Ghost power! Holy Ghost power!”) erupt from his compact, muscular frame. He seems to be — as he describes his little Louisiana church — on a “One Way Road to Heaven.”
And the road is open. Sonny, powerfully and convincingly created by writer-director-star Duvall, is a born preacher. When he starts chanting and singing in his harsh, explosive cadences, before congregations affluent or humble, white, black or racially mixed, the people rise and burst into hand-clapping fervor and heartfelt song. Sonny, straddling the bar between good and evil, love and hate, somehow is able to reconcile diverse cultures, unite disparate hearts.
“The Apostle” is a unique movie, maybe a great one. And if ever a performance in a recent American movie deserved to be called great, it’s Duvall’s as Sonny — or “The Apostle E.F.” as he calls himself when he flees his Texas church after a violent assault on his wife’s lover. Duvall has long been one of the elite actors of a great American generation that includes Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman. And, with “The Apostle,” the performance of his life, he steps to the head of the class.
Here is that rarest of movie achievements: a living, breathing human being. A character realized so expertly that we accept him as real, while also seeing him in a symbolic way, as representative and revelatory of a whole place and society.
Sonny — the fiery preacher who falls into hell and then struggles for redemption — is a complex psychological portrait, fully fleshed and filled with soul. He is one of the most convincing portrayals of an inspired but divided man the screen has ever given us. He is so human that we can understand all his passion and pain, sacred and profane. He is the kind of character Duvall fully understands, the culmination of much of the best work of his entire career, and we get him straight up, with both deep sympathy and rare objectivity.
The story of “The Apostle,” which Duvall wrote over a decade ago, begins with Sonny as a child, brought to a foot-stomping black fundamentalist church, the experience that helps transform his life. In brisk montage, we see his rise as a preacher, from boy wonder to solid middle-class success in tent revivals and his own church. We watch him comfort the dying, commune with his mother (June Carter Cash), raise his voice to the skies.
Then we watch his life fall apart when he discovers that his wife, Jessie (Farrah Fawcett), embittered by years of his infidelities, and possibly by abuse, has taken a lover, a boyish-looking youth minister. She also has succeeded in wresting away his church, congregation and children. Consumed with fury, Sonny first embraces his rival, Horace (Todd Allen), at a church service, and then, at his son’s Little League game, cracks Horace’s skull with a baseball bat, leaving him in a coma and sending Sonny on the run.
Now, his life changes again. He commits himself to service, pledges to be “an apostle” for his lord. Sonny finds his way to the Louisiana town of Bayou Boutte and the kindly, avuncular ex-minister Brother Blackwell (Chicago’s John Beasley), who has suffered several heart attacks and can no longer preach. But Brother Blackwell owns an old church that stands idle at the edge of town. The two men agree, warily, to start up that church again together.
There’s a catch. Brother Blackwell is black and so is his old congregation, which will be the foundation of their new one. But the two believe it will work out, especially when Sonny attracts interest by preaching on a radio station for beefy, honey-tongued broadcaster Elmo (Rick Dial). As Brother Blackwell explains: “The white folks all think you’re black. The black folks know you ain’t, but they like your style.”
Sonny now calls himself “The Apostle E.F.” (imprudently, his real first initials). Soon his church, “One Way Road to Heaven,” is filled with a rousing congregation, poorer than his previous church but louder, lustier and more loyal. The Apostle E.F., now back in his element, wins souls (his helper Walter Goggins), woos hearts (Miranda Richardson as Elmo’s secretary Toosie) and busts another head: bopping a troublemaker (“Sling Blade’s” Billy Bob Thornton) who comes to disrupt a service. (Later, Sonny redeems himself by stopping a second assault with love.)
But because he is a terrific preacher, and increasingly famous, he puts himself in jeopardy. The last scene and sermon of “The Apostle” are wrenchingly moving. And the last shot, after a blackout under the credits, is powerful in ways American movies rarely give us.
About Duvall’s Sonny, his finest creation, I saw not one false, forced or shallow moment. This performance glows with passion, seethes with emotion. And, as a director of other actors, Duvall shines as well. We see that same fire in Fawcett’s strained and tense Jessie, Beasley’s radiantly paternal Brother Blackwell and Britisher Miranda Richardson’s letter-perfect portrayal of Southern femininity. And in everyone else as well. Duvall, like any great actor-director, has the gift of bestowing life on his ensemble. “The Apostle,” shot in a semidocumentary style that deliberately recalls the films of Britisher Ken Loach (“Kes,” “Ladybird, Ladybird”), breathes and pulses throughout.
“The Apostle” is less a statement about religion than the story of a religious man: a turbulent blend of sinner and saint. And Duvall takes scrupulous care, uses rich observation. Brilliantly, he brings out all the conflicts and contradictions. How can Sonny’s God-fearing wife and church treat him so poorly? How can he react so violently? Is his redemption real or imaginary? Does it matter?
“The Apostle” finds in each of its scenes the pulse of life and the proper focus. It is raw as a slap, heartfelt as a prayer, real as a rock and the windswept rain. It’s a mark of the movie’s quality that both religious and non-religious audiences can be moved by it.
Not the least of its achievements is to put us into touch with a culture usually dismissed or travestied in movies — to present it with realism and artistry, not unblemished but all of a piece. Watching “The Apostle,” we can see, with that limpid illumination the best art gives, why religion plays such a crucial role in this violent place, how it transforms lives, good or bad. And we can see, also, the battle waging within the breast of one strong, complex man on the run. Seeing his face — so lost and tortured, so joyous and fulfilled, so deeply, unbreakably human — we can pay Duvall and all his company the tribute we grant all great actors. We believe.
(star) (star) (star) (star)
Directed and written by Robert Duvall; photographed by Barry Markowitz; edited by Steve Mack; production designed by Linda Burton; music by David Mansfield; produced by Rob Carliner. An October Films release; opens Friday. Running time: 2:13. MPAA rating: R. Language, violence.
THE CAST
Euliss F. “Sonny” Dewey
(The Apostle E.F.) ……. Robert Duvall
Jessie Dewey …………. Farrah Fawcett
Toosie ………………. Miranda Richardson
Horace ………………. Todd Allen
Brother Blackwell …….. John Beasley
Mrs. Dewey Sr. ……….. June Carter Cash
Troublemaker …………. Billy Bob Thornton
Joe …………………. Billy Joe Shaver
