Gareth Evans must have felt the need to reinvent himself as a director. With his last two films, Evans defined himself by an intrinsic talent for choreographing brutal and prolonged hand to hand combat sequences that defy logic with beautifully rendered practical effects. With his latest, Apostle, he keeps the practical effects and buries them in a sadistic occult update of the type if film that flourished in the 1970s. To be fair, the film isn’t the type of reinvention that departs exclusively from his style, but it moves at such a deliberate pace, lulling the viewer into a hypnotic and unseemly landscape where something wicked waits.
Dan Stevens of Downton Abbey, The Guest and Legion fame, plays Thomas Richardson, a man who’s sister is being held captive on a secluded island run by the cult leader, Prophet Malcolm (Michael Sheen). Richardson is tasked with bringing a sum of money that his family supposedly has to free his sister from bondage. Instead, he begins to infiltrate the island and slowly disrupt their way of life.
During his search Richardson finds that the island may hold more sinister secrets than he initially thought. At the heart of this is a rivalry between the Prophet Malcolm and his second in command, Quinn (Mark Lewis Jones).
The film subtly builds the structure of the cult and daily life on the island. By understanding the rhythms of life, he is able to establish the ultimate threat lurking. Yes, there is in fact something sinister at work, but it is man’s blind following of ideas that is the more total threat.
The first half, maybe slightly more, plays like an ingenious cat and mouse thriller. The entire time the cult is trying to figure out who Richardson is. He keeps discovering more about the island as they get closer to uncovering him.
When the second half kicks in, there is no holding it back. In one scene the sheer propensity for inhuman violence is established. The moment hinges on a love story between young people. Romantic love in this film is a weakness that has to be abolished from this land.
The scene is the type of hand to hand combat that feels completely absurd and wholly possible. Evans focuses on the clinging desperation of two bodies fighting for survival against each other. Bodies break in Evans’ films, they cut, they crunch, they bleed, and in the end he focuses on the sheer exhaustion that a physical encounter like this has.
This moment sets the stage for what’s to come. From here on out, the movie is an assault of violence and depravity. If it was just the violence, it would run its course quickly, but Evans revels in the chaos of the island. His art design has a palpable sense of place. Walls seem to sweat, bodies seem to be covered in the morning dew that never disappears, and blood curdles while bones crack and appendages dismember. He reveals these tortures in such painterly fashion that, even at the most cringe-worthy, you can’t turn away.
Dan Stevens is the type of regal British actor that is beginning to build a wildly diverse and exciting filmography. He bounces between projects like this and the remake to Beauty and the Beast. He is amassing the kind of career that we will constantly be guessing what he will do next. Not unlike the other lead of the film, Michael Sheen. Sheen has been in everything from the Twilight Saga to Frost/Nixon, which means, in many ways we are never able to see exactly where he will go with his next role. These two lead the film with confidence and commitment.
While the film is visceral, the carnage does build to something more than just bloodshed. Evans laces critiques of capitalism and religious fervor that are pointed, if not entirely specific. But, he has something on his mind at least. In the midst of the body horror and occult madness, he brings in relevant issues for today’s divided times. Apostle is imperfect, but immensely engrossing in its imperfections. I’m not sure what is in store for Gareth Evans next, but with his first few films he has distinguished himself as a filmmaker to watch.