Paul, Apostle of Christ (2018)

Paul, Apostle of Christ is a sort of sequel to The Passion of the Christ only Jim Caviezel has been recast as Saint Luke. Luke travels to Roman during the height of Emperor Nero's persecution of the early Church to record an imprisoned Paul's life story before his execution, material that would later be incorporated into the Book of Acts. James Faulkner, an actor I don't really know, plays Paul and he does a good, gradually charismatic job. Moments of Paul's earlier life are shown in flashback but the majority of the film is about the experience of the Christian community in Roman circa 67 AD. Besides Caviezel the only other actor in the film who I immediately recognized was Joanne Whalley, who plays Priscilla an important female figure in the early Church, who I do not recall form Sunday School, but who is probably worth learning more about.

French actor Olivier Martinez plays the prefect of Mamertine Prison, a career military man but a decent enough person who is to provide the 'outside perspective' on the events of the film, and whom Paul eventually 'almost persuades to become a Christian' after Luke (a doctor) curers his daughter of a sickness that has stumped the best Roman physicians. While it took 25 or so minutes to get going the dialogue heavy story really is quite interesting. In the LDS tradition the early Christian Church gets something of a short shift due to an understandable focus on the later gospel restoration, this movie makes me want to re-read Acts and the Pauline letters and maybe learn a little more about the 1st century Church. More intellectually hefty then the average Christian film Paul, Apostle of Christ surpassed my modest expectations.***