It stars James Faulkner as Paul the Apostle and Jim Caviezel (who portrayed Jesus in the 2004 film The Passion of the Christ) as Saint Luke.
[5] Paul has been imprisoned inside Mamertine Prison in Rome for his strong influence as a Christian leader which makes him a threat to Nero's power.
Mauritius Gallus, the newly appointed prefect of the prison, accuses Paul of burning half of Rome down and, by Nero's decree, sentences him to death.
As Saul of Tarsus, a Jewish boy, he was influenced by the zealotry of his leaders and witnessed the martyrdom of Stephen at their hands for professing faith in Jesus Christ.
Mauritius laments being made prefect of the prison despite his many deeds for Rome and the fact that his daughter is dying from a terrible sickness even with all his sacrifices to the Roman gods.
Having lost all patience with Priscilla and Aquila's pacifism, Cassius takes matters into his hands by bringing an armed group of men to storm the prison and free Paul.
After being sentenced to Nero's circus to be devoured by wild beasts, Luke leads the other prisoners in prayer asking the Lord to forgive their captors for their impending execution.
With the items delivered, Luke uses his healing skills as a physician to cure the prefect's daughter of her illness while the imprisoned Christians are thrown into the circus.
Aquila and Priscilla, having decided at last to leave Rome with their community, agree to deliver Luke's completed writings to Timothy and thus ensure that the Acts of the Apostles will be told and retold across the world.
The final scene depicts Paul arriving in Heaven as a crowd of people greet him joyfully, including all of whom he once persecuted and killed.
In an interview with Variety, Berden said that one of the main themes of the film is forgiveness: "Paul changed from murdering Christians to becoming one of their most influential leaders.
Caviezel explains how he prepared for the role of Luke:[11][12] I read the Acts of the Apostles and started lifting little clues here and there, and I went to Mass and prayed on them.
Priscilla's husband, Aquila is played by John Lynch, known for The Secret Garden, as well as roles from the Bible as Sagan in The Passion (2008), Gabriel in The Nativity (2010) and Nicodemus in Killing Jesus (2015).
[8] According to Yorgos Karamihos, the director and producers urged the actors to be "as authentic and visceral as possible in order to be real" rather than take into consideration sensibilities of various religious groups.
[3] In the United States and Canada, the film released alongside Pacific Rim Uprising, Midnight Sun, Unsane and Sherlock Gnomes, was projected to gross $2–7 million from 1,473 theaters in its opening weekend.
The website's critical consensus reads, "Paul, Apostle of Christ proves a well-intentioned yet disappointingly diffuse interpretation of a Bible story whose flashes of potential never come close to living up to the source material.
"[20] Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter wrote the film was "missing passion" and wrote: "The life of the crucial evangelist Paul has everything needed for a powerful film, but the filmmakers picked the wrong part of his life to dramatize in Paul, Apostle of Christ, a soupy, conjectural take on how the widely-traveled proselytizer came to produce his account of spreading Jesus' word throughout the Mediterranean world.