The Apostate (2000)

Too much of everything

Simply A Masterpiece

Excellent but underrated film

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I really enjoyed this film, and for someone who is neither a Dennis Hopper fan, and the last thing I remember seeing Richard Grieco in was "21 Jump Street" (now I feel old) I really was able to appreciate the depth of the characters, and the overall storyline had my attention from the very start. For an impulse buy movie, it is one I will watch again and again. The ending had me confused at first, but after reviewing the final scenes (I am not going to divulge anything specific) I was able to figure out where it was going. I think the depictions of the Catholic church were really good, and especially loved Father Killans "confession". Its sad they butchered the final cut in post production, but when it comes to films, writers/directors are interested in art and vision, whereas editors and studios are interested in run time and box office gross. In my opinion, not really a fair trade off.

I'll give writer/director William Gove credit for finding someone to finance this ill-conceived "thriller." A good argument for not wasting money subscribing to HBO, let alone buying DVDs based on cover art and blurbs. A pedestrian Dennis Hopper and a game Richard Grieco add nothing significant to their resumes, although the art direction is not half bad. The dialogue will leave you grimacing with wonder at its conceit; this is storytelling at its worst. No tension, no suspense, no dread, no fear, no empathy, no catharsis, no nothing. A few attractive and often nude females spice up the boredom, but this is definitely a film best seen as a trailer. I feel sorry for the guy who greenlighted this thing. Good for late-night, zoned-out viewing only. You have been warned.

This was an impulse pick up for me from the local video store. Don't make the same mistake I did. This movie is tedious, unconvincingly acted, and generally boring. The dialogue between the young priest and his uncle is particularly poorly written and delivered; I cringed at every scene they shared. Dennis Hopper makes a few sparse appearances and is his usual disjointed self; his role was clearly not a stretch for him. And although the movie is supposedly set in Puerto Rico, it feels a lot more like a Hollywood movie lot; all of the main characters are Caucasian and several tend to speak English with pseudo-Irish accents. Odd. Anyway, when you see this one on the shelf of your local video store, keep walking.

This movie was a mess. It had the absolute worst editing I have ever seen. It was almost like at the end of a scene the writer wanted to go to commercial, and the filmmaker added a second of black screen to fulfill the writers dream.Under the messy direction and editing, there was a glimmer of something good. A good idea, a compelling spark. But somewhere it went wrong.The story is about a quasi-psychic priest who is trying to solve a string of murders. The first thing that is hard to bite into is Richard Grieco as a priest. Well the part doesn't call for him to be a good priest and he succeeds rather well. The second problem is Dennis Hopper as the crazy bad guy. He always plays the crazy bad guy. Very ho hum.Oh, a thought occured to me that maybe all the jumpy, horrible editing and disconnected plot was trying to add a sense of the confusion the character (Grieco) was experiencing. And just to prove that it was contrived they rolled the credits backwords. Not a good sign for any movie.