Caiaphas asks Pilate to station a Roman guard at the tomb, but Pilate seems to refuse. Three days later, the Virgin Mary, Mary of Magdalene, Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea go to the tomb and find that it’s empty, the body of Jesus gone. A final scene shows Peter praying in a boat and receiving a miraculous catch of fish, then raising his eyes skyward while promising Jesus, “I will be your fisher of men! “The Passion of the Christ.” This powerful version of Our Lord’s Passion is brutal and hard to watch at times.
As played by Sleiman, Jesus is something of a cipher, without much charisma or divinity. He’s just another man in “Killing Jesus” with a bad wig, eating from plateware that looks just a little too Pottery Barn for the first century. The movie doesn’t work to give us a sense of who he might have been and why so many were drawn to him; it just assumes we already know the answers. But those are the kind of interesting depths and imaginings a movie about this amazing story can and should bring. They are what transform an ordinary National Geographic canvas into something closer to a vision.
I guess most of my criticism here has to do with things that weren’t included in the story of Jesus, so that may just be a particular quirk of mine. However my viewing of the picture occurred a day after watching the 1927 silent film “The King americantruck com reviews of Kings” which appeared to be a much more complete narrative of the events leading to the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. If one were to be faced with the choice of one or the other, my recommendation would go for the early film.
The movie is not a faithful adaptation of the book. It leaves a lot of important things out from the book as it focuses on the political machinations of the Roman and Jewish authorities as they oppose John the Baptist and Jesus. When Jesus meets John the Baptist, Jesus seems full of doubt. Eventually, with Peter’s help, Jesus proclaims Himself the Son of the living God, which leads to His crucifixion. Based on the New York Times best seller by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, “Killing Jesus” is an epic motion picture event chronicling the life and death of Jesus as never seen before.
The television adaptation turns what an earlier film called “The Greatest Story Ever Told” into one of the snoozier stories ever told. Though it presumes to know the mind of its characters, the book does stick to biblical sources for its dialogue. A movie is a different animal; the authors of the Gospels did not write long scenes full of banter and psychology. Ever since “The Passion of the Christ,” that the bloodiness of many of the biblical films seems to have increased. A man’s slit throat is plainly visible, as is blood on a child, murdered by one of King Herod’s henchmen.
“Killing Jesus” is a spectacle of scenery and big scope and features solid acting regarding the life of Christ. It features some big names in the cast, such as Kelsey Grammer and John Rhys Davies. It is also a mixture of Biblical stories centering around the life of Jesus, and the movie manufactures a few variant ways of portraying certain events. In some cases, it offers abridged versions of the biblical text. For example, during the climatic scenes of Jesus being turned over to Pontius Pilate, the people cry out, “Crucify him! ” And Pilate simply hands Jesus over to the Roman guards for that very deed to be carried out.
Also, the resurrection, though implied, is not visually confirmed with the return of Jesus in the flesh. Killing Jesus starts at the beginning of the Rabbi’s life with King Herod the Great ruthlessly ruling over his people. Paranoid that his throne will be usurped, Herod orders the murder of all of the male babies in Bethlehem when three magi from the East tell him of the Messiah’s birth.
Also, Jesus is full of doubt at the beginning, unlike the book. The KILLING JESUS movie is well shot and acted, but not as compelling as the book, and certainly not as compelling as the New Testament Gospels. —I agree with the review above for this movie. I am an O’Reilly fan, so I understood that he was approaching it from a more political and historical avenue than strictly biblical. However, I did find it disturbing that the role of Jesus was surprised by the miracles and not seeming to understand his Divinity.
The film has an ambiguous ending—an empty tomb, but no literal physical manifestation of Christ among his disciples. The purpose of this film is the big question who remains after its end. Because it is not portrait of the Savior or the portrait of a Prophet. And the desire to redefine His existence and work – wrong. Too long, too innovative and unclear, it is an exercise to present a good guy who has not specific identity, who not gives a specific message, who looking like Christ but at the level of poor sketch.