With a title like Paul, Apostle of Christ, you would think that the movie was solely about the titular character, but it is actually a slice of life in Nero’s Rome told from the point of view of the persecuted Christian community and Paul’s jailer. I don’t know anything about the filmmakers, but I felt like the movie was a veiled dig at Presidon’t. The movie seemed to draw numerous parallels with current American life and Nero’s Rome.
Paul, Apostle of Christ shows that Christians were demonized as terrorists just as Muslims are now; some Roman citizens felt in danger and had to decide whether or not to stay as a beacon of hope or run to save their lives just as some Americans are debating; and Roman soldiers who served their country honorably and gained citizenship are belittled by the leadership for their sacrifices just as Gold Star families or fallen soldiers who don’t fit into a certain demographic get nothing but derision or rudeness. Lest you think that I am exaggerating, Prefect Mauritius, Paul’s jailer, vents, “Twenty years of service to Rome risking my life to earn my citizenship and now forced to take idle servant’s work while Nero makes a mockery of everything that Rome stands for.” He later says without irony that Rome is free to one of the persecuted. See what I mean. “It will pass. He can’t be emperor forever.” Let’s hope not. Nero 2020.
Paul, Apostle of Christ explicitly explores the tension of being a Christian in the secular world and how to respond to a corrupt government out to punish people for who they are, not what they did. Instead of condemning uncertainty and difference of opinion, it is represented as organic considering the circumstances. There is also a great thread of doubt because no one in the movie met Jesus before He died, which is a really bold move for a Christian movie to make and reflects the concerns of Christians today.
Paul, Apostle of Christ also explores how a well-intentioned secular person navigates natural allegiances and service to government when it becomes rotten. The movie depicts the problem of personal beliefs, what you objectively know from experience and daily observation versus the conflicting, nonstop barrage of messaging which seeps into your being. The prefect knows from experience that Christians don’t appear to be as dangerous as everyone claims, but he has orders, social pressure from others who believe the messaging and religious pressures to treat them like blasphemers (if you believe in the gods). The Romans have a lot in common with American Christians who equate serving Christ with certain behaviors: you vote a certain way, you believe certain things, etc. even if it contradicts the values that you claim to value. It is easier to critique Christians if you show what it looks like when someone who isn’t a Christian behaves similarly.
Unfortunately Paul, Apostle of Christ is an inconsistent film full of potential, but unclear on how to balance all of its characters. The titular character is the least interesting character in the film in spite of an attempt to make him a foil to the prefect as a pair of soldiers. The flashbacks that show Paul’s greatest hits tonally derail the movie instead of enhancing it. This movie could have benefitted from taking a similar approach that Risen took-not assuming that the Christians were good, and the Romans were bad so the viewer could go on the same journey as the prefect and come to a conclusion. Spoiler alert: he executes Paul anyway, and the Christian community packs its bags and go.
Paul, Apostle of Christ should have emotionally felt like a gut punch and completely unfair so you could understand why the Christians run instead of stay, but Christians are so intent on making a happy ending because we believe in eternal life that we ignore emotional realities that make stories more resonant and powerful. Death still hurts and is unwanted even if you know that the story ultimately has a positive ending. The reason that Christian films are never as good as secular films that explore spiritual themes is that we are uncomfortable with having negative feelings that seem to undercut or contradict how we expect to act if we genuinely believe in Christ or raise doubt, but even Christ did not want to die. Instead this movie starts with death and corruption at night then ends with death and corruption in the day as if seeing the character gracefully accept his fate mitigates the result. It doesn’t, and a movie shouldn’t try to make it feel as if it did.
Paul, Apostle of Christ also lays it on a bit thick when it initially compares and contrasts the Roman community with the Christian one. Luke is surrounded by death, sexually harassed and sees human trafficking with the implicit threat that he could be a victim at any moment then the Christian community is one perfect community. This tone is gradually diluted as some Christians consider violent resistance to Roman persecution, and we find out more about the prefect’s life. Mauritius is a homebody and doesn’t party like a soldier. I did appreciate that when there was healing, it was because of science and experience, not supernatural intervention.
Paul, Apostle of Christ has the usual casting problems. A bunch of Northern European white people play Middle Easterners with the exception of Jim Caviezel, who was best known for starring in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. It did not annoy me as much this time around because a French actor played a naturalized Roman, which I thought was a nice touch.
Paul, Apostle of Christ should have had a title that reflected its story such as Acts, which Christians would immediately understand as a short hand summary of the film’s narrative. There have been movies with that name (The Visual Bible: Acts, The Book of Acts), but who cares. It is unlikely that this movie expected to reach a broader audience outside of Christians, and if it did, then it needed to be way better on a lot of fronts.
Paul, Apostle of Christ is not must see viewing except if you still have any Christian friends that you still socialize with who support Presidon’t to see if they can change or if you just enjoy watching Christian movies even if they are just mediocre.