Set in biblical times, Tiffany
Dupont stars as Hadassah – a young Jewish girl living in Susa,
Persia
with her Uncle Mordecai (John Rhys-Davies).
She lives in dangerous times as King Xerxes (Luke
Goss) is being pushed
by his advisors to fight a war against Greece
before they can move into Persia,
forge an alliance with the Jews, and promote democracy, which would
upset the
monarchy and the current power structure that they benefit from.
After a split with the Queen,
agitated by those who want to force the King into a war, a search for
the new
Queen commences, which leads to Xerxes’s men kidnapping women
from across the
country and taking them to the castle for the King to choose from. Hadassah is one of the
young ladies, but she
has changed her name to Esther to conceal her true heritage and
maintain her
safety. Soon, she
starts to make a
positive impression on Xerxes, and we have to wonder if she will be the
next Queen,
stop the call to war against the Greeks, and be an obstacle to attacks
against
the Jews.
One
Night With The King is a
movie best appreciated by people who already know the story and want to
see it
come to life visually. Simply
put,
writer Stephan Blinn and director Michael Sajbel, have a mountain of
material to
cover here. We are
presented with the
relationship between Xerxes and Esther, plotting by those who want to
topple
Xerxes, another character seeking revenge for actions taken years ago,
danger
faced by Mordecai and more.
One
Night With The King easily
could have been a mini-series with so much plot and so many characters
to keep
track of, but Sajbel does a decent job keeping it all straight. The movie does fail when
Blinn tries to
modernize the dialogue and his attempts at levity and comic relief
often come
off stiff and out of place. However,
Sajbel maintains the epic feel of the movie and the somber tone that
reminds
you how important these events are.
While you might wish
Rhys-Davies had a larger part, especially as he captivates the audience
in his
big scenes, and Peter O’Toole, highly touted in all of the
ads, trailers and
posters for the movie, only appears for about 10 seconds, most of the
acting
falls into the good enough category.
Dupont sometimes falls into sounding like a Valley
Girl, but has enough
screen presence to make the character into the hero she is.
One
Night With The King might be hard to
follow, but is a welcome and honorable telling of the Purim
story.
2
½ Waffles (Out Of 4)
One
Night With The King is
rated PG for violence, some sensuality and thematic elements
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2007 - WaffleMovies.com
