Saturday, March 21, 1998

'The Apostle' shows a place where faith has fire

By Ken Garfield / Knight Ridder Newspapers

The best thing about "The Apostle" isn't Robert Duvall's performance.

It's how his movie has opened a door into the fiery world of Pentecostalism. We may be too intimidated to visit a Full Gospel church on Sunday morning. But we can go see "The Apostle" on Saturday night and feel the same heat.

A Charlotte, N.C., woman came out of the AMC Carolina Pavilion on South Boulevard one afternoon this week, having just watched Duvall's Sonny Dewey preach and strut for Jesus. All aboard! he shouted from the tiny church he built in backwoods Louisiana. The Holy Ghost conductor is calling!

The woman attends a mainstream Baptist church in south Charlotte, one of many where the preacher rarely raises his voice and would never invite his flock to ride a Holy Ghost train. You'll understand why she wouldn't give her name when you hear her confession after 2 1/4 rockin' hours with Sonny Dewey:

"Our preacher isn't anything like that."

The Charlotte woman probably wouldn't leave her church to join the one in "The Apostle," where the preacher breaks into "I'll Fly Away" and a worshiper flaps her arms like a chicken or a 747.

Yet there was a hint of admiration in her voice for a way of worship that lets people feel free to spill their emotions on the sanctuary floor. There was admiration, too, for a film that takes such a respectful look at a way of life that many in the mainstream find frightening.

"The Apostle" tells the colorful story of Sonny Dewey, a womanizer who kills his wife's lover (the church youth director) and resurfaces as Apostle E.F. in Bayou Batiste, La. He opens One Way Road to Heaven Church -- complete with a neon arrow pointing skyward -- and begins to touch the lives of working-class blacks and whites who are drawn to his fervor.

Duvall was born to play Dewey. He all but dances a jig on the pulpit. His weather-beaten face brightens with each mention of Jesus. For 2 1/4 hours, he isn't an actor but a Pentecostal preacher working his way into lost souls.

At the end of "The Apostle," Dewey's flock dances in the aisles as he leaves. Only Sammy, the shy fellow who helped Dewey start the church, realizes Apostle E.F. is leaving for good. But he and the others will be OK. Their preacher -- sinner though he be -- left them with an unbridled love for the Lord.

The singing goes on as Dewey is driven off into the night.

JoAnne Lewis, 55, of Cornelius, N.C., left "The Apostle" in tears.

Going into the hospital the next day for back surgery, she was moved by the ease with which people put their lives in God's hands. She hadn't experienced that emotion in her church back home in rural Eastern North Carolina. She hadn't felt it in the months since her bad back kept her out of Sunday morning worship.

"They just seem to be able to let their religion show," Lewis said. "In a regular, standard church, people would think you're crazy. But you feel the warmth, the love, a different love for Jesus."

We shook hands, and I wished her luck with the surgery. She headed moist-eyed to her car. I walked to mine, realizing what an odd, yet appropriate place to taste the love of God -- in a suburban movie theater, amid the smell of buttered popcorn, beside a poster promoting "Godzilla."

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(Ken Garfield is the religion editor at The Charlotte Observer. Write to him at: The Charlotte Observer, 600 S. Tryon St., Charlotte, NC 28232.)

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(c) 1998, The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.). Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.