Paul, Apostle of Christ

We’re getting into the week before Easter, which means we’re bound to find some Bible-based films hitting theatres.  In recent years, the offerings have been rather disappointing or even downright distasteful (I mean, this year’s Easter weekend boasts the release of God’s Not Dead 3!  There’s three of those damn things!), a sentiment I, for one, have also extended to the increasing crop of religious-based and/or -themed films that seek to exploit its ostensibly righteous audience as much as entertain them.  Affirm Films hasn’t had the greatest track record in my eyes, what with past efforts including The Star, one of the absolute worst animated films I’ve recently seen; Miracles from Heaven, with its out-of-whack sensibilities and highly questionable story; Risen, a film seeking to illustrate the historicity of Christ’s resurrection in a way that’s ironically couched in bad faith; and War Room, which did gangbusters despite a problematic tone and general lack of filmmaking know-how.  They return to the historical genre with Paul, Apostle of Christ.

The film chronicles the tail of Paul/Saul of Tarsus, a one-time persecutor of Christians who saw the Light on the road to Damascus and from then on followed in the footsteps of Jesus, becoming one of the most influential pillars of the early Christian church.  Here, Paul is in a Roman prison, accused by Emperor Nero of conspiring to burn the city down, being regularly visited by Luke, who’s trying to keep the Roman Christians together during a time of widespread persecution.

The overall look of the film is relatively rich, with a strong production design that surpasses its relatively meager $5 million budget.  On-location shooting on old fortresses in Malta likely helped with this, though the clear age of the buildings undercuts the temporal setting of the narrative for me.  There are some additional problems on the technical side that irked me, including some poorly edited-in ADR, some loose and choppy editing, a camera that occasionally and thoroughly unnecessarily rolls as though it’s on a particularly wobbly boat, and a serious on-going issue with the camera’s zoom:  There is a decidedly soft focus and contrast throughout, something that looks to be an artistic choice (nothing wrong with it at all, especially given the literal saintly nature of the main characters), but the focus is such that the foreground is fine, soft, while the background completely devolves into blurred chaos, as though it were produced with crossed eyes, something that I honestly hope was just a mistake, as it looks terrible when it happens (and it happens quite a lot, sadly).

But some strong performances help to distract from these technical issues.  Of particular note is James Faulkner in the title role.  Having kicked around the British scene for some time (I mostly remember him as Uncle Geoffrey from the Bridget Jones films, but he’s also appeared on Downton Abbey and Game of Thrones), he comes into his own here, projecting a strong-willed Paul, full of internal shame for his past misdeeds and hope for the future of his burgeoning religion.  He carries every scene he’s in, overshadowing even co-star Jim Caviezel, the one-time prime Nazarene himself, and provides an abundance of classical British gravitas to his role.  Caviezel works well here as well, keeping the same earnestness (and accent, it seems) that made him work as Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo and earned him his most recognizable role in The Passion of the Christ.  In fact, everyone keeps the earnestness flowing, maintaining a solid tone throughout, helping the film escape the wavering nature of films like Samson.  There is precious little in the way of woodenness here, with only a semi-prominent child actor bringing little to the table, everyone aiming for the other end of the spectrum if they’re looking for an extreme to settle on.  Though this could have resulted in some obnoxious histrionics, the melodrama here goes only so far as it needs to, thankfully.

Most praiseworthy, though, is the underlying message of keeping true to one’s faith and holding love as the answer to the world’s ills.  So often these days, films aimed at the Christian market present a manufactured reality that pushes a persecution complex and an unhealthy distaste for any dissenting beliefs.  Suffice it to say, many of these films create a toxic environment surrounding religious cinema, one that simultaneously panders to and exploits its audience, rather than lifting it up.  See as the God’s Not Dead series, Old-Fashioned, parts of War Room, and sadly plenty others.  Here, though, we see the triumph of the doctrine of love.  A quasi-dogmatic schism amongst the Christians is shown, pitting the peaceniks against a hawkish group dead-set on violent revenge against the Romans for their persecutive ways, only to have the latter denounced by the two central future saints.  Mauritius, the prison’s magistrate (an original inclusion by the writers), bears the usual hallmarks of a God’s Not Dead-style atheist/non-believer, what with his aversion to the strange new cult of Christianity, support of the Roman pantheon, and haughty, nigh-villainous demeanor, but he is allowed a strong sense of humanity, a man trying to please his political masters while also trying to save the life of his ailing daughter (a situation that causes some understandable strife in his household), all while seeing the potential benefits of love and trust stemming from Paul and Luke.  There is an almost fetishistic reverence for spilt blood pervading the proceedings, but luckily it’s not enough to derail the stronger call for love and understanding in a world tainted by distrust and an overall darkening of the human heart.  It’s a message that resonates in the often tumultuous present day in Trump’s America and elsewhere, one that needs to be communicated more and more each day, especially from films ostensibly coming from followers of and believers in Christ’s teachings.  There’s no inter-faith animosity, no real straw-manning of ideological opponents, no unnecessary persecution complex (the Roman mistreatment of early Christians is well-documented, and it doesn’t seem to be fully standing in as a metaphor for current times, just a sideways nudge that calls for a comparison between the two time periods), just disagreements that are overcome through forgiveness and love, an honestly uplifting moral.

It’s because of this message that I can’t rag on the film too much, even with its understandably (and, frankly, inherently and necessarily) preachy feel and technical shortcomings.  If nothing else, this film is a nice Easter watch, one that lets the talents of James Faulkner bring the message of loving one’s fellow man to vibrant life.  It’s personally a mixed bag, but I feel it deserves a more positive reception than most of its genre’s contemporaries.