with Robert Duvall and David Edelstein
6pm, Paramount
Director: Robert Duvall
Writer: Robert Duvall
Cinematographer: Barry Markowitz
Cast: Robert Duvall, Farrah Fawcett, Billy Bob Thornton, Miranda Richardson, June Carter Cash
Running Time: 134 min

Academy Award winning actor Robert Duvall stars in, wrote, produced, and directed this original story of a faithful man who struggles with his own sins even as he works to save the souls of others.

Euliss ‘Sonny’ Dewey (Duvall) is a Southern Pentecostal preacher with a conflicted personal life who must reinvent himself after committing an atrocious sin. He finds himself deep in the Bayou and adopts the name “Apostle E.F.”. Preaching and praying is his whole life, and as we come to understand the character, we see a personal conversion from a wrathful creature of the Old Testament to a man shaped by New Testament ideals.

As screenwriter and director, Duvall avoids sentimentality and easy answers and the film, although fiction, takes on an intimate documentary feel. The evangelical life is an important part of American (particularly Southern) culture and it is portrayed here without apology or condescension. Our movies famously depict evangelical preachers as loud and righteous charlatans who spout biblical ideals while personally breaking the commandments with astonishing regularity. Apostle E.F. is a flawed human being who must fight to control his own baser instincts, but he is also a godly man who truly believes in the power of redemption.

The making of The Apostle has also become something of a legend in independent film circles. Duvall struggled for years to get the backing for the film and ultimately financed the project himself. Fortuitously, over that span of time he re-wrote the script several times and that opportunity helped produce a screenplay that feels alive and authentic. This is his third directorial effort, but it is Duvall’s Oscar-nominated performance as the devout, powerful, carnal, and deeply torn preacher that will rivet your eyes to the screen.