One Night with the King

I was not happy with this film, and I did give it a chance. Fundamentally the best actors were in supporting roles, it was almost a crying shame to see Omar Sharif complete wasted in this film. Sumptuous settings with attractive sets, and believable costuming, the most basic problem was trying to feel interested in these individuals. The actor who portrayed the King did such a great job of appearing aloof and royal that he became flat and insipid, in fact it was the complete lack of dimensionality to the main characters that really hurt this film. Nor was the story line well developed. Why did the Persions attack the Greeks initially? How and why did the Jews get to Persia? The screenplay was developed as if it was assumed that everyone was a Pentacostal Christian who reads the Old Testament every Sunday, and ignored a wonderful chance in exploring an entire historical period. To be kind I gave this film 4 Stars, but it deserved a lower score.

The sad thing about this movie is that the cast is SO great that you expect to have a great movie. But the plot is sketchy and disjointed, as are the transitions between scenes. The biggest problem as I see it is that with such a LARGE cast it does not really become clear until the movie is half over who is who. Jonothan Rhys-Davies is awesome as always, and there was not nearly enough Peter O'Toole for this fan. John Noble did a great job, and James Callis was terrific, wicked and relentless. Despite this, the movie had plot weaknesses, was confusing, pacing was too slow at times, the language was often flowery, and Luke Goss as Xerxes was just awful, his king dithering and weak. See it on cable, not really worth the money of a ticket. What a pity.

Great scenery and costumes in an all time classic story of a(Persian/Iranian) tyrant wanting to kill all the Jews (!) and a courageous woman who stands in the gap to save them. Highly recommend taking the wife and kids. First of hopefully many family friendly films by Gener8xion which is run by the son of TBN founders Paul & Jan Crouch. with actors like Peter O'Toole & Omar Shariff you can't really go wrong and add to that the incredible location in India and a great plot and this movie might actually compete with such greats as Braveheart, Troy, Alexander and other historical dramas. Time will tell...