For producers and screenwriters, trying to make a historically accurate film, especially one dealing with a faraway and complex period, is a thankless and often pointless task. History, having no clear beginning and no clear end, is almost impossible to squeeze into the conventional story structures demanded of cinema-going audiences - at least as they are perceived by film financiers. And the result is always a mass of over-simplifications, compressions, chronological mayhem and mis-characterization. Even if the end result is a good story, which in this case it sadly is not, the value of the piece as 'history' is as good as useless. This is the case with 'To Kill a King'. As an aide to history it is without value, because the events and conflicts it portrays were almost certainly nothing like the film-makers would have us believe. And as pure entertainment it's unpardonably slow. It gets ties up in arcane issues that we have no special reason to be concerned about any more, and rarely flames into life. Some of the performances are lively (Everett as King Charles is the high point), but most are one-dimensional, include that of both Fairfaxes (Dougray Scott and Olivia Williams). Overall, unless Civil War costumes fascinate you, this film offers little return on the cost of a cinema ticket.
Review of To Kill a King
