More on The Final Inquiry

For a film that's due to be released on DVD next week, Fox Faith have surprisingly little news about The Final Inquiry on their website. There's a discussion guide and very little else. There's a little bit more on the film's dedicated site but it perhaps explains why I've had such a hard time getting hold of a copy of the DVD to review. There are, however, plenty of stills from this film here.

There are a few more bits on this film elsewhere. Greg Wright has interviewed Inquiry's star Dolph Lundgren, although he doesn't appear to have got a great deal out of him. The film is about "this rabble-rouser down in Palestine named Jesus", his character starts out as a "fierce warrior from the barbarian countries" but when he "observes this new religion being born" he's "transformed". As to his own faith, he notes that "as you get older... issues of faith become more of a conscious choice... You get more interested in life and death".Perhaps the most interesting comments on this film that I've read thus far are at Metro Movies

There’s a fascinating audacity to this whodunit set in Roman Palestine in the aftermath of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, from the tone to the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink plotting. With his faithful Goth servant (Dolph Lundgren) in tow, a Roman legionnaire named Tito Velerio Tauro (Daniele Liotti) is sent by the emperor Tiberius to investigate the death of a Jewish religious dissident in the Judean prefecture, a death that was apparently heralded across the empire by a sudden solar eclipse and earthquakes.

A sword and sandals film noir set in the blinding Middle Eastern sun, the film features a cast that includes F. Murray Abraham, Max Von Sydow, Ornella Muti and Monica Cruz, younger sister of Penelope Cruz, as the tragic Pharisee’s daughter and fledgling Christian that the legionnaire falls for amidst the back-stabbing and intrigues of Judea. Pontius Pilate and Saul of Tarsus – St. Paul after his Damascene conversion – are the main heavies, and authors of a cover-up that’s meant to strangle the Christian cult before it spreads beyond Israel.

It’s a collision of the devout and the wacky that’s probably unintended, especially during a scene where Tauro goes all Gil Grissom and does a CSI on what’s supposed to be Christ’s corpse. As with most films marketed under the Fox Faith banner, it’s hard to figure out just who the audience for something this odd is supposed to be.

I think Christianity Today are also planning to have a new piece on this film shortly.