DOUBLE CROSS
‘Killing Jesus’ fixates on perps’ reasons, intrigue
IT’S LONG been a core element of Christian faith that Jesus was nailed to a cross.
“Killing Jesus” sets out to nail the perps.
It succeeds reasonably well in that goal, distilling the story of Jesus’ life into a tale of political and theological intrigue that could fit comfortably into a contemporary TV procedural.
That's not to suggest “Killing Jesus” is casual or irreverent in any way — just that many of the characters feel as if they could have stepped out of a modern-day actionadventure drama.
This two-hour condensation of Jesus’ life starts with the paranoid King Herod (Kelsey Grammer), who orders all male children killed because he has heard one of them may someday seek to challenge him.
But the ultimately fatal threat to Jesus (Haaz Sleiman) comes from the High Priests of Jerusalem’s Great Temple, who see Him as a threat to their power and their alliance of convenience with the ruling Romans.
Caiaphas (Rufus Sewell), most powerful of the High Priests, ultimately brings Jesus down by slipping Judas 30 pieces of silver to betray Him.
Even then, Caiaphas has to do some judicial shopping. Pontius Pilate (Stephen Moyer) at first isn't interested in the charges against Jesus and sends the case to Herod’s son Antipas (Eoin Macken), who also finds no crime. Finally Caiaphas convinces Pilate that Rome is better off with Jesus dead.
As all this suggests, “Killing Jesus” focuses less on theology than the political and strategic forces by which Jesus’ enemies finally won the day.
It also notes that while they won the day, they lost the next couple of millennia. Even though most of Jesus’ disciples were also eventually killed, today there are more than 2.2 billion Christians.