Paul the Apostle

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This is a film about the life of St. Paul has some good stuff going for it. The acting, for the most part, was pretty good. The film locals, costume design, setting design, and cinematography were pretty good. The script was the problem. The writer decided to create a fictitious character named Ruben, a Sadducee, who is a friend of Saul, the Pharisee. When Saul/Paul converts to Christianity, Ruben becomes his bitter enemy. I'm not against fictionalizing aspects in a film about a historical person, but it just didn't work. (The 2018 film PAUL, APOSTLE OF CHRIST was mostly fiction dealing with the last days of Paul in prison telling Luke his story as Luke writes Acts. Even though it was fictionalized account it worked better than the fictional aspects of this film.) I would have liked the film to have spent more time on Paul and his missionary work then on the fictitious villain. The scenes that work are when Paul is interacting with Peter, James, and Barnabas. If you want to see a much better film on Paul see the 1981 tv movie PETER AND PAUL (starring Anthony Hopkins as Paul and Robert Foxworth as Peter). Also, the above mentioned PAUL, APOSTLE OF CHRIST is pretty good, too. Though this film is better than PAUL: THE EMISSARY.

The final TNT Bible movie, starring Johannes Brandrup as Paul of Tarsus, is one of the better one. Yet I have two issues. 1) They added fictional characters. I don't mind if there is some dramatic licence (there always is). But to create an entire storyline with characters that didn't really happen that way, in this case Paul's main nemesis Reuben and Reuben's wife Dinah, who becomes a Christian, and then leads Reuben right to Paul? So far, these TNT bible movies have been more biblically accurate. I can deal with such things, such as fictional characters Jack and Rose on James Cameron's Titanic, but it just makes me wonder why they felt the need to create fictional characters. And 2) I'm glad they saw fit to add Barnabas (G.W. Bailey), but even in a two hour miniseries, they couldn't include Silas and Timothy? Not very accurate or complete guys! But for what they did show, including characters to the story who weren't really there in the bible, this was still quite good.

If anything can be gained by watching this two-part TV movie (seen by me in a much edited version), it is the view of a brutal era which occurred after the death of Jesus and the reactions to the preaching of his followers and the transformation of Saul to Paul. This may attract controversy from Biblical scholars, but for me it did give an interesting viewpoint of the times, and one can only assume what society looks like in the years following Jesus's death. Filmmakers can only make assumptions based on documents of the time and other historical references, so much of what is presented is assumed fiction. That being said though, Johannes Brandrup as Saul/Paul does an amazing job as the anti-christian who is confronted by the spirit of Jesus and goes through an amazing transformation, changing completely as he begins to live a life as a converted Christian who will set the course for the last books of the New Testament. The film shows the powers of the Jewish leaders in charge during the time, as anti-Christian as one can be, obsessed with their power and completely arrogant and unwilling to make any understanding of the new religion coming their way. They are insufferably hateful and nasty. Then there is the depiction of the stoning of Stephen, gruesome and horrible. Why this practice was utilized (and in some places still is) wasn't considered barbaric and unjustified boggles the mind. The international cast only includes one actor familiar to me (Franco Nero) but that makes the film more interesting because you are not distracted by the presence of a familiar voice and face. I won't debate the historical accuracy, but I came out feeling that I had l learned something, if not the complete truth.

We start this movie with a Pharisee (Saul) and a Saducee (Reuben) wrestling, Greek style. That's only the first of other apparent liberties the producers took with this movie. Peter is then represented as a doubting Thomas (after the Lord Jesus has risen from the dead and ascended into Heaven!) who just doesn't know how to go on with the "mission". Pentecost is shown fairly accurately, except for the fact that no one rushes to see what the commotion is about, the apostles do not speak in tongues, and the movie just moves to a still doubting Peter, who decides on the spur of the moment to preach to some random Jews, out of whom he makes three converts vs the biblical account of more than 3,000. No one is baptized in the manner any Jew would expect (full immersion) from a proselyte. Those were enough blatant inaccuracies for me to turn the movie off. After reading about the fictional Reuben and the unnecessary nudity in other reviews, I'm glad I did.