An ex-missionary versus sinister cult
Always watchably intense but hardly lingering, Gareth Evans’ “Apostle” is the Welsh director’s followup to his bone-crunching Indonesian action epics “The Raid” films. Shifting his energies to a Victorian-era island blood cult hasn’t dimmed Evans’ taste for feverish body harm, but it’s more clearly laid bare his narrative shortcomings.
Dan Stevens plays Thomas, a hollowed-out exmissionary infiltrating an isolated religious community run by Michael Sheen’s zealous prophet Malcolm, who with his right-hand enforcer Quinn (Mark Lewis Jones) is secretly holding Thomas’ sister for ransom. What Thomas’ increasingly dangerous spying uncovers is an infinitely weirder and more gruesome form of corruption, one that threatens not just his personal quest, but the cult’s true believers, including Malcolm’s compassionate daughter (Lucy Boynton) and a pair of young lovers (Kristine Froseth and Bill Milner).
Evans and his capable design team, anchored by cinematographer Matt Flannery’s dank, torch-lighted atmospherics, wear their “The Wicker Man” and “The Witchfinder General” influences proudly. But when Evans piles it on with a supernatural twist, it distracts from the concentrated nastiness of dramatizing a cramped idyll’s festering inhumanity. We may be in a flourishing moment for cross-genre hybridization, but not every story needs both a creepy cult and a malevolent spirit.
“Apostle.” Not rated. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes. Playing: Laemmle NoHo 7, North Hollywood; also on Netflix