To Kill a King (102 mins, 12A) Directed by Mike Barker; starring Tim Roth, Dougray Scott, Olivia Williams
When somebody mentions the Civil War and the cinema, one immediately thinks of nineteenth-century American history rather than the turbulent events in seventeenth-century Britain. The cinema has largely fought shy of this complicated, controversial period. There have been plenty of costume romps set during the Restoration (Anna Neagle as Nell Gwyn, Linda Darnell as Amber St Clair), but few have dealt with the Civil War and the Commonwealth. Centrally there's Ken Hughes's epic Cromwell with a tortured Richard Harris in the title role, and Winstanley, Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's meticulous recreation of the Diggers' community in 1649. Marginally, though very attractively, there's Michael Reeves's Witchfinder General and Max Ophuls's The Exile, with Douglas Fairbanks as Charles I chasing blondes and dodging Roundheads in Holland. And not much else these past 30 years.
So To Kill a King, Mike Barker's film about the relationship between Oliver Cromwell and his closest associate, General Sir Thomas Fairfax, is to be welcomed, if only for its ambition. The film is mostly set in the years before the end of the Civil War proper and the execution of Charles I, and it begins in 1645 after the New Model Army has achieved a decisive victory at Naseby. From their first appearance the contrast between the pair is shown by having Fairfax (Dougray Scott) intervene to prevent Cromwell (Tim Roth) killing a would-be assassin on the spot. In four years' time Fairfax, increasingly disturbed by his friend's ruthlessness, will himself plan to kill Cromwell at the point when he is about to become Protector.
Barker and his screenwriter, Jenny Mayhew, see Fairfax as a decent man torn between allegiance to the crown and a belief in the need for reform, and Cromwell as a fanatic who needs the charismatic Fairfax at his side to command popular support. There is too a question of class and sexuality. Cromwell the farmer's son is drawn to the handsome aristocrat and his beautiful high-born wife Lady Anne (Olivia Williams). Envious of their confidence and unconcealed passion for each other, he may possibly harbour homoerotic feelings for Fairfax.
The issues at stake - democracy, liberty, egalitarianism, compromise, pragmatism - are as important today as they were then. But the urgent moral and political debate between Fairfax and Cromwell is weakened by making Fairfax so reasonable and attractive and turning Cromwell into a snarling totalitarian monster. Only in a final deathbed coda is Cromwell allowed much in the way of humanity. In the event the most riveting character is Charles I, played by Rupert Everett as a poised, slightly effete figure out of Wilde with a neat turn of phrase and a slight patrician stammer. Like Wilde we see him bringing about his own downfall through his regal contempt for his usurping accusers. His refusal to acquiesce in a new constitution leaves them with little course but to kill him.
To Kill a King is a decent and honourable film that, unfashionably in contemporary cinema, shows some interest in ideas and how they function in public life. Unlike most films today, it would have benefited by being a good half-hour longer. Sadly it falls rather short of two remarkable plays on the period that our theatre gave us in the 1980s, Bill Bryden's version of Christopher Hill's The World Turned Upside Down at the National and Howard Barker's Victory at the Royal Court.
