 | MOVIE DETAILS • Name: Apostle • Year: 2015 • Country: USA, UK • Director: Gareth Evans • Main cast: Kristine Froseth, Dan Stevens, Lucy Boynton • Runtime: 129 minutes • Production company: One More One Productions, Severn Screen, XYZ Films • TRAILER |
Filmmaker Gareth Evans is considered one of the best action directors of the last decade thanks to his films The Raid: Redemption (2011) and The Raid 2 (2014). But what from one side seems a very positive thing, it might eventually get against him. Although he already showed the interest to take different paths than adrenaline gunfights and impossible punch-and-kicking choreographies with his segment Safe Haven in V/H/S/2 (2013), it is with Apostle (2018) where he has mastered it.
If you are searching for crime shoot-outs and constant bulled-massacred bodies in the style of The Raid saga, Apostle (2018) is not your movie. Because we are in front of a serious sects mystery thriller, placed in is 1905, and with a deeper reading that it could at first seem to have. A man with a dark past travels to an island inhabited by a religious cult to rescue his abducted sister. Some of the villagers are not what they seem to be, and the apparent freedom is nothing but strong slavery for those weak–minded people. Well, what a sect or any religious commune is supposed to be, right? Only here the supernatural takes place.
In a run longer than 2 hours, the story takes us to different terrains that the basic rescue mission type one could at first expect. The movie is very well built, making clear that Gareth Evans truly masters the cinematographical language. Although many of the backgrounds are hidden, one can feel the main characters have a big and painful life on their backs. Well built characters in hardazous situations and a good hand to direct the whole thing makes Apostle (2018) the kind of movie to keep you glued to the chair.
The movie opens with a good set of very pretty photographed landscapes with very intense music. A doorway that won’t close until the end of the film, since the nicely spoiled images and the aggressive ambiental score will accompany us along the nightmarish story. The religious figures, from one side to the other, are in sight along the whole story in a way where the filmmaker tries to make the audience to decide not only what the characters supposed to believe, but also what are our own beliefs. Apostle (2018) is not sermoning, it doesn’t say which religion is the right one, or even if religion in general is a good or bad thing. Because the final message is that we are humans, we are predators, we are not treating this planet and its inhabitants as we should, and that eventually is going to end up in punishment.
Although its apparent density of ideas, Apostle (2018) is not a boring or slow movie, and it’s easy to watch. Some action and violent scenes that take place are done with a masterful dosage, which brings a more cruel reality to the show. overall, this movie confirms that Gareth Evans is a complete and competent filmmaker that should be always taken in consideration. It was a great pleasure to watch it in a big auditorium with a gigantic screen and powerful sound system before it becomes part of the Netflix catalog. Seriously recommended.
RATE: 7/10
IMDB URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6217306
