Despite some noteworthy names in the cast, I can't say I had high expectations. A movie, or book, disputing the biblical account of Jesus' supposed life will inspire either laughter or apoplexy in believers; in non-believers, either some level of interest or perhaps indifference. However well made such a title might be, it's reasonable to wonder how such fare could be whipped into an engaging full-length picture. As a more famous example to illustrate the point, for as beautifully made as 'The last temptation of Christ' was, the storytelling was nothing special; for as controversial as it was, the narrative thrust ultimately reaffirmed established mythology. While 1976 film 'The Passover plot' earned an Oscar nomination, I think it's safe to say that it has broadly gone unnoticed and unheard of by most people in the subsequent forty-plus years. So what of it? How is this feature that, following Hugh Schonfield's book, suggests the man known as Jesus Christ was nothing but an ordinary man who took advantage of circumstances to posit himself as a long-awaited messiah?
This has great difficulty finding, maintaining, and balancing appropriate tones, and that flows mostly but not exclusively from Michael Campus' direction. The juxtaposition of quiet moments and loud ones is needlessly jarring; some of the sequencing is suspect. Too many quiet scenes are downright sleepy, not truly thoughtful or meaningful as they should be; some loud scenes are overly clamorous and disordered, and it's a crapshoot of whether or not charged emotions bear earnest fruit or just come off as overacting without mindful tact; scenes that split the difference, well, what we get will be anything on a wide spectrum. Composer Alex North gives us a score that raises a bit of a skeptical eyebrow at points with some of his ideas that feel ill-fitting for the tale at hand. Some of the editing, including visual effects or otherwise manipulation of the filmed footage, is downright dubious. One result of all this is that there are times when it would have taken very little if any significant adjustment for this sincere drama to have been altered into a melodramatic or parodic farce akin to Monty Python's 1979 classic 'Life of Brian,' and that sense extends even to some choices of shots and camerawork.
There are some smart lines of dialogue at points; some of the scene writing bore genuine potential, and likewise the broad strokes of the plot. With that in mind, consider for a moment that penning the screenplay, a work of narrative fiction to form the basis of a movie, was a matter of adapting what was a comparatively dry scholarly exploration of a concept, and provision of support for the root thesis. As such, I have to hand it to writers Millard Cohan and Patricia Louisianna Knop, because in the very least they performed one minor miracle and churned out a serviceable framework of a script, and there really was some worth here. On the other hand, the screenplay often lacks clarity as to characters' identities, or even the events or import of a scene. There is quite little of the screenplay that spends any time reinforcing the underlying premise - that the man Jesus was scarcely more than an opportunist devising his own elevation and perhaps the unification of his people. The bulk of the film is really just a retelling of biblical canon, and a flat one at that; save for that we already know what this is about, it may not stand out at all. While Campus and his direction bear the brunt of the responsibility for how weak and uninteresting 'The Passover plot' is, I think the writing also lacks the power for much if any of the material to land with any force.
It's not all bad news. Again, the screenplay had some potential. The production benefited from the use of terrific, gorgeous filming locations, and it's not for nothing that Mary Wills was recognized for her lovely costume design. Those practical effects that are employed look swell. I think the cast struggles under Campus' direction, but despite discrete instances of troubled portrayals, no actor here is specifically at fault. I may be biased since I adore Donald Pleasence anyway, but I'm inclined to think he gives the most outwardly admirable performance (even if he, too, suffers from some of the decisions that generally plague the picture); Hugh Griffith is also noteworthy in an even smaller part. And critical as I am of Campus, and his orchestration of scenes, he does also at times show a welcome keen eye for shot composition. Even through to the very last stretch of the runtime, however, right when it should matter most, the execution is mostly so unsteady or possibly outright feeble that in total 'The Passover plot' just trundles past unremarkably. As if to emphasize the point, the most actively interesting this actually gets is in the few lines of text we get in the last minute, an epilogue of sorts, that denotes the lack of contemporary historical accounts of the events or figures that are central to the entire tableau and the relevant mythology. I repeat: in a full-length feature of a little less than two hours, text at the very, very end is the highlight.
I don't believe this to be altogether awful. For what it does well, I want to like it more than I do. It's deeply flawed, however, in multiple ways, and in a fashion that greatly diminishes its inherent quality, the contributions of those involved, and the weight it might have carried. Whether one is a diehard Christian or a diehard atheist, or even if one is a major fan of someone involved, I really don't think there's enough value here to particularly warrant spending time with it. Whatever it is you want out of this movie, sadly you're better off looking for it elsewhere. I'm not saying one should wholly avoid 'The Passover plot,' but the simple fact of the matter is that there's just no substantial reason to ever look for it in the first place. Oh well.
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