Killing Jesus

Rendered without much embellishment and acted with firmly controlled vigor, Killing Jesus, a TV adaptation of the bestselling book by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, is a fine retelling of the story of Jesus Christ as a historical figure.

With an efficient and alternately clumsy and eloquent screenplay by Walon Green, Killing Jesus does not vary much from the Via Dolorosa. As a result, the lavish NatGeo treatment works a lot better than it did on the channel’s adaptations of O’Reilly’s earlier books, “Killing Lincoln” and “Killing Kennedy.”

There are a number of bad wigs and beards on display here, but much of the cast surmounts the costuming problems. The pace and the depth of the story might have been helped by extending this film into a two-night event.

As ham-fisted as the filmmaking is, the anticipated finale is gritty, convincing and moving. We feel the wrenching pain Jesus experiences on the cross. His final words are spoken like a man about to die after hours and hours of unimaginable agony, with resolution and perhaps a bit of relief. It isn’t enough to rescue the rest of the feeble effort, though.

Jesus hits a few of his main talking points (first stone, do unto others, turn cheek), but only a fraction and not the most subtle of them. And neither Sleiman nor the script nor director Christopher Menaul lifts the story off the ground.

Killing Jesus is a shallow telling of the Jesus story, with no more distinction than you might find in the generic reenactments of some historical documentary.

Killing Jesus is apparently satisfied to look and sound vaguely cheesy.