Apostle (Film Review)

2018 Netflix
Written and Directed (and Edited) by: Gareth Evans
Starring: Dan Stevens, Lucy Boynton, Mark Lewis Jones, Bill Milner, Kristine Froseth, Paul Higgins, and Michael Sheen
MPAA Rating: R; Running Time: 129 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 5/10

It's 1905, and Thomas Richardson (you know, like DOUBTING THOMAS) is headed to a remote Welsh island to ransom his kidnapped sister from a mysterious cult. He reaches the island, and while his sister is nowhere to be found, the puritanical, I guess puritanical, I don't know, cult is. The cult, led by the sort of charismatic, Malcom Howe, has the run of things, and doesn't seem to look kindly on anyone leaving, ever. After wandering around late at night, Thomas, a former Christian missionary who endured torture during the Boxer Rebellion in China, discovers a mysterious shack, housing what appears to be some kind of humanoid Earth goddess. The goddess is being held captive, I guess, by a bunch of brambly vines that come to life whenever she is fed blood. Apparently, when the goddess was originally discovered and held captive by Malcom and his cohorts, she blessed the island's harvest, but now she is cursing it. The island is now struggling to get by, and desperate times call for desperate measures. Will Thomas be able to find his sister before chaos overtakes? And maybe rediscover his faith in a subplot that isn't really explored?
2018's slow-burn, horror drama, Apostle, is two hours and nine minutes long, and I felt every ticking second. Gareth Evans knows his way around an action movie, but I haven't a clue what he is trying to do here. There are nods to The Wicker Man, at least as far as the setting goes, and there are brief nods to his previous action work in a few quick cues that would spice up this film if they weren't so mercilessly short. As Thomas, Dan Stevens puts in his usual solid work, but this film seems to have little clue who Thomas actually is, giving him a series of ticks and a dark backstory in the place of any actual humanity. Apostle seems to have little idea of who any of its characters are, or what this cult is, or its belief system, or how life actually works within it, or how the goddess exists thematically, or how Thomas' journey of faith reflects on anything that is happening around him, or even exists at all until he suddenly believes again at the end. How does what he's gone through reflect on where he ends up? This movie is a mess of apostolic proportions.
Thankfully, Evans can shoot a film. Every frame of this movie, even the shots of the late-film excessive and gratuitous gore, is sumptuous, ravishingly lit, a work of art. The performances by every member of the cast are good, but in the service of nothing. I can't help but think that the overlong runtime here is simply the film meandering around searching for some type of reason to exist. Apostle would have worked far better as a taut, 100-minute thriller, but it feels as if there's a part of Evans that wants to avoid being stereotyped as an action director to the point that he cuts this film off at the knees. Speaking of, for the patient gorehound, there's plenty to feast upon if you can get past this film's first 90 minutes. Apostle features some truly disgusting stuff, from a grotesquely utilized corkscrew-tipped punishment device, to a hand injury that has to be one of the most gruesome put to screen. For those looking for scares in this "horror" movie, there's one good jump in a claustrophobic scene about halfway through, and that's it. As much a blip as that one moment of terror is, here's hoping this messy film is just a blip on Evans' so-far storied career path. In the fine lineage of his filmography, Apostle is a disappointment.