Paul, Apostle of Christ – Movie Review

Paul, Apostle of Christ – Toss the Ticket

Today, we’re going to talk about the movie, Paul, Apostle of Christ, which stars James Faulkner as Paul and Jim Caviezel as Luke. For me, it was difficult to see Caviezel as Luke for the first bit of the movie because I kept thinking he was Jesus every time I saw him due to his role in The Passion of the Christ.

Once I got over that, I was able to really get into the film. I felt both Faulkner and Caviezel played their roles really well. I also did like the performances of some of the side characters, but aside from just a couple of roles, I didn’t enjoy much of the rest of the acting. I’m not sure if this is because of the acting ability or because so much of the dialogue is dry, though.

Being a pretty much solely dialogue driven movie, having dry dialogue really hinders the film throughout. There are flashes of brilliant dialogue, which tend to happen at just the right moments to keep me coming along for the ride, but I wish it had more intriguing dialogue throughout. Because it doesn’t, the film drags on a lot.

One place where Paul, Apostle of Christ nails it, however, is in the production design and quality. The film looks pretty amazing. It’s even filmed using anamorphic lenses that act like a vintage lens, adding a lot of character to each shot. The lenses used were even used in filming Bridge of Spies and John Wick, which are two movies I absolutely love.

Speaking of Bridge of Spies, where that movie succeeds in terms of dialogue which keeps me focused throughout the film and making me feel almost what the characters are feeling, Paul, Apostle of Christ leans too much on my knowledge of Paul, Luke, and the Bible to the point where I didn’t connect with many of the characters or feel how I think I was supposed to feel at certain points in the movie.

That being said, the last act of the film was able to turn things around. It got to the point where I was watery eyed and a tear or two dripped out before the film was over. If it can do that, then it was at least doing something right. I just wish it could have done that the entirety of the film and not only at the end.

For those reasons, I’m going to have to Toss the Ticket for Paul, Apostle of Christ.