By Father Scott Archer
Paul: Apostle of
Christ was directed by Andrew Hyatt, who also co-wrote the screenplay with
Tereance Berden. This much-anticipated movie tells the story of the Evangelist
Luke and how he came to write the history of Paul in the Acts of the Apostles, which immediately follows the gospels. While
much of the movie focuses on Luke interviewing Paul, who is imprisoned in Rome
awaiting martyrdom, there is also a subplot involving the Roman in charge of
the prison, Mauritius, whose daughter is dying. Starring James Faulkner as Paul
and Jim Caviezel as Luke, many Christians have been looking forward to this
film’s premiere.
Setting aside my suspicions of movies marketed toward a
specifically Christian audience, I entered the theater with an open mind. Nonetheless,
despite the wealth of source material provided by the Scriptures, this movie
was surprisingly – and sadly – a very dull experience leaving me to wonder why they
even bothered making it. The screenplay may have been intended to be
meditative, but it did not translate well on screen. The scenes were listless
as we viewed close-up after close-up of Paul in prison telling his story. And
despite mixing it up with flashbacks of his life, we were shown the same
flashbacks over and over, and we still did not get the full story of Paul. As for
the character of Luke, who was somewhat livelier, his doubts and occasional
blasphemous exclamations left no doubt that he little resembled the historic
Luke. The story of Mauritius, played by Olivier Martinez, was far more interesting
and entertaining, but it was not expanded upon enough to save this movie.
As a priest with a degree in Church history, I was
perplexed by the lack of any mention of Peter, the bishop of Rome and head of
the Church. Though this movie takes place in AD 67, and tradition holds that
Peter and Paul were martyred on the same day, there is no mention of him. In
fact, the Christians in Rome refer all questions through Luke to Paul. Without
any knowledge of history, one would get the impression from this movie that the
entire Christian community in Rome consisted of about twenty-five people living
in a gated community.
The historic story of Paul is rich with drama, conflict,
and redemption, all of which could have worked toward stunning, spiritually
moving effect in this film, but it failed on every count, giving instead a
dull, forgettable tale of Luke visiting Paul in prison. I give it one arrow out
of five.
