Review: "Killing Jesus" is a mockery of Christianity in guise as history

Killing Jesus movie review

“Killing Jesus” TV 14

Normally this critic does not do TV movies, but this one had to be done, as there needed to be a fair and balanced riff on this train wreck of a movie. Clocking in at 3 hours with commercials, about 180 minutes without, the National Geographic channel’s highest rated TV movie ever comes off as a stellar set piece and costumed Passion play. What it lacks though is the very message of Jesus Christ the Nazarene.

Starting out in ancient Palestine about two years after Jesus was born, King Herod in a bad fright wig (Kelsey Grammar of Frasier and X Men and Cheers) is distraught when he has a bad hallucination dream and imagines magi telling him about the Christ child. He then orders his men to kill all the babies.

Somehow, Mary and Joseph are warned to go to Egypt with baby Jesus who is clearly tan, and to not hang out with their pregnant aunt, Elizabeth, who will began John the Baptist. No mention is made of Joseph’s boys from the previous marriage from scripture, because this is a Catholic interpretation, sort of.

Old Herod dies and his son, Agrippa takes over, and he is so badly acted that he might as well have a handlebar mustache and snicker every other line.

Later on Pilate and his wife are coming to town commenting on Jews having a foolish belief in an invisible God, so there’s a not do atheism in the play, which is wrong. Pilate was Roman so he believed in Roman gods.

Nothing wrong with Jesus being played by a Muslim but the acting, even if he had been another nationality, is just passable. He comes off as more of an ineffective preacher than the Son of God and man that the scripture reports.

John the Baptist comes off as a crazed hippy lunatic in the story, and his baptizing of Jesus seems to be more of a service than divine. In fact, the story skirts over any major miracles or divinity, making it appear as though the natives were just going by wishful thinking. This is both incredibly pretentious of the director, and kind of heresy. The followers then are made out to be rough necked rebels who want merely to crush Roman rule and they seem to force Jesus to go places with them, instead of his asking. It’s like he’s running for president, not making sermons. He’s not of the Tea Party. He’s a Barack Obama metaphor.

If anything, the Romans are of the Tea Party in the story, blabbering about various conspiracies they intend to hatch, working with the sneaky teachers of the day, Pharisees and Sadducees. More than 80 percent of the movie is spent politically playing ball with the conspiracy, whereas in scripture it is really a kind of footnote. They basically plot to kill him and then try him and kill him. That’s it. But no, this movie wants to somehow force the ideas of modern American democracy onto the imperial occupied state, Judean Israel, millennia before modern democracy, Rome under Israel in the first century. Rome is not the US, but the writers want you to think that. Palestine is thus not Iraq, but they want to convey that.

Also offensive is that the women are all portrayed as either needing a man, or as conniving sneaky evildoers, but there are no women in between, until the saintly nuns show up at the end. They’re supposed to be Mary and the other ladies, but their clothes look like nun clothes in the movie.

Then even more offensive is that they made it look like the poor and the lesser class is not important, but rich people are better, because of breeding, and that the poor are apparently just not smart enough to have evolved like they. The villagers are portrayed as mentally lesser than others, having delusions of God, which is somehow extremely against religion, and the teachers in it are equally over the top evil and smarter in the other direction.

Only the tax collectors and money changers get a fair deal.

It’s not killing Jesus without the resurrection, but so they imply that the body was just stolen. The narration at the end implies 2 billion people are Christian, but it offends the right wing base they’re trying to court.

The back lash online should really be larger. This movie should be shown at churches as what it’s not about! If you include the meek shall inherit the Earth and then claim the rich are better, it’s insane and doesn’t make sense. The rich people are supposed to be the bad guys, but here they are kind of given a status of the ones the audience should root for.

The director then tosses in the stories of Jesus but minus miracles, except for two fish scenes, and an exorcism.

They also don’t seem to understand how Jewish law, commerce and customs worked back then, which for a claimed history novel to movie adaptation they should know. At one point they are baffled at the foot washing scene for the wrong reason, because the real reason is a rabbi guest should not act as a servant, but in the movie it’s treated as oh those silly men and their customs. What? This movie is actually quite offensive.

The movie offends Jews and women, minorities and the poor, and suggests Jesus wasn’t even divine, so it’s a mockery of Christianity, and offends them too.

As a moderate Christian I am insulted that this movie was filmed and exists, and that Bill O’Reilly seems to believe he is right about everything to do with Jesus and everyone else is wrong. It shows a genuine pathos and an ego large enough to offend the Christians he claims to tout with the guy. The director could be to blame for some of this. The film is not recommended and gets one star. That is fair and balanced.

Review by Kal Kat