THE PASSOVER PLOT

(director: Michael I. Campus; screenwriters: book by Hugh J. Schonfield/Millard Cohan/Patricia Knop; cinematographer: Adam Greenberg; editor: Dov Hoenig; music: Alex North; cast: Harry Andrews (Yohanan The Baptist), Hugh Griffith (Caiaphas), Zalman King (Yeshua), Donald Pleasence (Pontius Pilate), Scott Wilson (Judah), Dan Ades (Andros), Michael Baseleon (Mattai); Runtime: 108; MPAA Rating: PG; producer: Wolf Schmidt; Atlas Film; 1976-Israel/USA-in English)

“Despite kicking up a religious storm, the film is amateur in its production, disappointing, bland and uninteresting.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Michael I. Campus(“Zero Population Growth”/”The Education of Sonny Carson”/”The Mack”) directs this religious revisionist film that insults the tenets of the New Testament. It’s based on the controversial 1960s book on the Life of Jesus Christ by Hugh Schonfield. The book depicts Jesus as a zealot leader who arranges for his own Crucifixion to make political points against the Roman authorities.

Zalman King is an angry young Christ, showing little warmth for humanity.

Despite kicking up a religious storm, the film is amateur in its production, disappointing, bland and uninteresting. It should get the faithful in a rage by blatantly saying Jesus was a fake. It asks us to wonder if Jesus was just a human con artist and not divine, as in the Bible.

REVIEWED ON 4/22/2016 GRADE: C