Paul, Apostle of Christ Review

Yesterday I gave you my review of "I Can Only Imagine," the definite surprise of this Easter season both in terms of box office and quality. Now it's time to dive into the Easter movie I was highly anticipating. I mean, regardless of what sect of Christianity you belong to, Paul is kind of a big deal since his epistles comprise of nearly half of the New Testament. Plus a good portion of the Book of Acts is dedicated to his story and missions. So a movie dedicated to him seems like it would be a winner among the Christian audience around Easter. There's a huge goldmine full of stories involving him that haven't been mined much by Hollywood. The trailers made it seem like high quality cinema and the filmmakers seemed very passionate about the project. Finally, this is the same exact studio that did the 2016 film "Risen," which I really enjoyed, that being LD Entertainment in association with Affirm Films, distributed by Columbia Pictures. Upon release, the poor critic reviews didn't deter me. Most Christian films get panned by critics, including the aforementioned "Risen," which sits at 52 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, only slightly higher than this movie's 36 percent. The 90 percent audience score is what helped me keep my faith in this release.

I don't want to say that this was a disappointing movie for me, but this was definitely a different movie than I was expecting. Thus before I go any further I want to clue everyone in on what this movie is all about it. I didn't think it was too harsh to expect a movie titled "Paul, Apostle of Christ" to be solely about Paul, the apostle of Christ. His story is a very relatable one in the sense that he went about destroying and persecuting the Christians of his day when one day Jesus appeared to him and told him to stop persecuting the saints, to which he responded by completely changing his life around and spent the rest of his days in Christ's ministry. OK, sure, few of us have Christ appear to us, but the idea is that Paul was arguably a very worldly person who was against Christianity, yet was able to completely change his ways and come to Christ. If such a person who had done such awful things can change and come to Christ, perhaps that can give us hope individually that either we can change and become better or our family and friends that we try to reach out to can eventually soften their hearts and come to Christ. Thus if this movie honed in on those themes and drove home this story of Paul and his miraculous change, I think this could've been a powerful film.

But that's not what this movie does. In fact, I would argue that the central themes of this movie don't even surround Paul at all. This is less about Paul's personal journey and more about the persecution of the Saints following the death of Christ, specifically around 60-70 A.D. in Rome. I knew based on trailers that we'd start out at the end of Paul's life when he was imprisoned in Rome by Nero, who was Emperor of Rome from 54 A.D. when he was just 16 years old up to his death in 68 A.D., during which he was potentially responsible for the deaths of both Peter and Paul. For some reason, though, I didn't think we were going to stay in that time period for the whole movie. I thought maybe we were going to do the thing where we start at the end, but then jump back in time and tell the story of Paul in his prime, before then finishing back with old Paul at the very end of the movie. And yes, we do that to a certain extent, but it's a much smaller portion of the movie than you'd think. There's a moment where Luke sneaks into Paul's prison and Paul tells his story and we get flashbacks of him being responsible for the death of Stephen then later telling of his conversion when Christ appeared to him on the road to Damascus, but that's not what the movie focuses on, which surprised me.

Thus while I was watching it, expecting to be entertained or inspired by Paul's conversion story, I had to mentally shift gears a bit as we were instead focusing on the persecution of the saints in Rome, which was one of the darker times in history for Christians. In fact, I would say that Luke is the main character of this movie while Paul is there as the Yoda figure, giving out his wisdom as to what should be done, while not being in a position to lead them since he's in prison. And it's funny that I think of that Yoda comparison, because now I'm thinking about "The Empire Strikes Back," a movie where the Empire deliver crushing blows to the Rebellion. If the Empire is Rome, Palpatine is Nero, Darth Vader is Mauritius, Yoda is Paul and Luke is, well, Luke, then there's a lot more comparisons to "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Paul, Apostle of Christ" than I was initially intending on bringing up when I started this paragraph. I mean, both movies are led by a Luke who gets advice from a wise old figure in the midst of a conflict where the bad guys win. Ha ha! In that case, I suppose it would be a similar situation would be if "The Empire Strikes Back" was titled "Yoda, Ancient Jedi." Both Yoda and Paul are central figures to the story, but the story isn't completely about them.

OK, now time to get back on track after incidentally stumbling on a Star Wars comparison. Once we have the right idea about what this movie is about, I think this movie can be appropriately enjoyed. Or, rather, appreciated. Because this is a rather somber movie. We start by seeing the good Christian saints being used as torches to light the streets at night. While the specific imagery we see isn't extremely graphic, not when compared to something like Martin Scorsese's "Silence," anyways, the implications of what's happening make you rather sick to the stomach. These are good people who did nothing but choose to believe in Christ, yet they are being brutally tortured by the Romans because of it. There's a group of saints out in hiding who are simply trying to figure out what to do, especially since their leader that they look up to, that being Paul, is essentially on death row and they are going to be up next if they don't figure something out. There's a portion of them that decide they want to start an uprising. All things considered, you can't really blame them for desiring that. In addition to the debate as to whether to fight or remain peaceful, there is a discussion on whether they should stay in their home country of Rome or escape to a more livable area.

All of this is done in a rather subtle manner. By that I mean this is a more character driven story loaded with exposition about what's happening around them rather than showing us the action. They could've gone with the up-tempo, high-paced action film with this, but rather they chose to make a slow film that remains very low key. That's why I like the word subtle. I can see a lot of people being bored with this movie or thinking that it lacks focus. And I would agree to a certain extent, but by the end of it, the gravity of the situation weighed heavily on me. I decided that I didn't need to see all of the persecution on camera. I didn't need a lot of war and bloodshed, but the mood of it all felt almost uncomfortable as I experienced the story from the perspective of the people who were still safe for the moment, but were feeling a lot of agony and pain as they hid from the world around them in this enclosed area. Then we'd follow Luke as he would sneak out to visit Paul and the brief images on the street around him or the brutal lack of mercy from the Romans was rather depressing. Through all that, these moments were hit home as we listened to Luke talking to Paul while Paul gave the council of what Christ would do in situations like this and that is essentially to suffer through.

There's one specific scene that stood out to me as a powerful moment of dialogue in this movie. I won't give the specific storyline to what's happening to these people as it's closer to the end of the movie, but Luke is telling them that they are going to experience a lot of pain. But that pain is going to be brief and if they are able to endure it, then will come the moment of glory where their patience and endurance will pay off as they will get to celebrate in the presence of God. I think that's the message that this movie tries to drive home and if you're patient with the movie, I think it's something that has the ability to be impactful. Everyone has to make choices in life based on what they feel is right and, even though it's hard to endure, you have to stick to your guns and continue to do what is right regardless of what the worldly consequences are. If you believe in God or believe in Christ, do you have enough faith to still believe and follow the teaches even if you are thrown into prison, condemned to die, or see your friends and family get tortured and killed. Can you say with Paul as he says in 2 Timothy 4:7 that "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith" even as you are about to be offered up and killed by your persecutors? 

I will admit that this is a bit of a difficult watch at times on a few different levels. First off, yes, there is some imagery that is hard to stomach and, even though a lot of it isn't seen on screen, the movie does a good job of letting the audience know how brutal the Roman Empire was to these Christians. But second, this is a slow-moving drama that requires a lot of patience to get through without drifting off. And never once does it really pick up, thus it requires one to think and ponder on the themes of the movie in order to feel satisfied, because I can see people walking out of the theaters feeling bored and I wouldn't blame them. As pertaining to the lack of focus, yeah there's some story arcs that I felt were included because the filmmakers were trying to figure out how to fill the run time, with one example being Mauritius, one of Nero's little pawns, having a sick daughter who was about to die. I'm not sure what the overall point of that was in the big picture of the movie. But overall as I look back on the movie, this was a satisfactory viewing experience for me. If you can only afford to see one Easter movie, I'd still recommend "I Can Only Imagine" over this one. But if you're willing to be patient and implement a bit of brain power, this movie can work just fine. I'll give it a 7/10.