- Critic Score
- Most active
- Publication
- Most clicked
-
100Duvall is a blazing wonder in a film that ranks with the year's best.
-
100Duvall's screenplay does what great screenwriting is supposed to do, and surprises us with additional observations and revelations in every scene.
-
100Avoiding the clichés and condescension that characterize many films on religious figures, the movie is at once a compelling drama and a thoughtful look at faith-related issues on personal, social, and cultural levels.
-
100Unusual, unhurried tour de force--a seamless match of strong artistic vision and physical performance. [19 Dec 1997, p. 52]
-
100An effortlessly complex portrayal that relishes the contradictions and complexities of someone capable of both exalted and debased behavior, a shape-shifter it is possible to be fascinated, repelled and compelled by, all at the same time.
-
100The numerous, extended revival scenes are amazing, with Duvall a dynamo of divine energy and devout dedication.
-
100The fact that Duvall gives such a glorious performance in The Apostle is likely to distract people from the fact that he has also written and directed a glorious movie--the most vivid and radiantly made of 1997.
-
100If you want to sample the sheer bouquet of great acting, you could get drunk on this movie.
-
100Duvall’s direction of a mix of professional and nonprofessional actors, especially in the extended church sessions, is never less than masterful.
-
Duvall's performance is so passionate, so energized, that it's almost eerie: is Sonny acting him or is he acting Sonny?
-
89Whether strutting like a bantam rooster for the Lord, fervently calling himself a “genuine Holy Ghost, Jesus-filled preaching machine,” or humbly acknowledging the folly of his actions, Duvall inhabits the character of Sonny, completely disappearing into the man's skin.
-
88Duvall delivers a bravura, Oscar-quality performance....The Apostle is a profoundly humane movie that crackles with the joy and sorrow of an old blues record.
-
80Nothing can make an agnostic squirm like full-on religion but by loading his central character with lay weaknesses as well as spiritual strengths, Duvall invests the near-documentary style film with an everyman appeal.
-
80This little knockout of a movie, written and directed by Robert Duvall -- who also plays the title character, a roving Texas evangelist -- can strike you in the same way that Bible stories did when you first encountered them as a child.
-
The best movie ever made about a man of God -- which is to say, the most honest and morally the most ambiguous.
-
80Duvall's unobtrusive direction moves the film at a leisurely pace that lets many scenes build the gentle, pleasing rhythms of small-town Southern life. A rare display of spiritual light on screen.
-
80The masterful Duvall skillfully illuminates the paradoxes of a very complex man; he also elicits honest performances from his cast. The zealous churchgoers seem more like real people than actors.
-
75It's rare that we have a screen character as well-rounded, as recognizably human or as brilliantly played as Sonny Dewey.
-
75A good little movie dominated by a great central performance that's likely to endure. [30 Jan 1998, p.D2]
-
75In his long and distinguished career, only his Oscar-winning performance in 1983's “Tender Mercies” was this raw. Duvall becomes Sonny. The energy and passion of a preacher are all present.
-
70Robert Duvall's performance as a Holy Roller who shakes off his secular life to become a man simply known as “the Apostle” is a masterpiece of emotion.
-
70Beautifully detailed and deftly structured, every scene in The Apostle logically leads to the next one, each elaborating on the central theme of religious redemption.
-
63A too-perfect mirror of its creator, The Apostle's greatest strength doubles as a singular weakness -- in the end, it feels like an immaculate forgery.
-
60This rambling exercise in local color has been a pet project of Duvall's for more than a decade, and it's to his credit that he managed to get such a low-concept picture produced. It's also to his credit that he resists the temptation to take easy potshots at religion, particularly of the revivalist variety.
-
60Duvall chews up the scenery with smoldering, fire-and-brimstone orations.
-
60Reminded me somewhat of Archibald MacLeish's famous line that a poem "should not mean but be." That's the reality of The Apostle: It does not mean, it simply is.
-
40In the end, The Apostle feels like a con, a movie that embraces its contradictions only because it's not smart enough to reconcile them; everything feels complex, but, in fact, it's far too simple.
-
25One of the most self-in-dulgent, muddled, badly written, vague and pointless exercises in filmmaking I have ever had to sit through.
prev
next
Page:
- 1
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 1 out of 2
-
Mixed: 0 out of 2
-
Negative: 1 out of 2
-
OliverC.10One of Duvall's best roles. He made this movie fascinating.
-
DaveT.2