***A side story to “Kingdom of Heaven” about a Templar, a Muslim and a widow in the desert***

After the Battle of Hattin in 1187, a grim Knight Templar named Rene (Tim Abell) wanders the desert where he encounters a Muslim named Hassan (Bill Mendieta). They meet a Muslim woman, Soheila (Mapi Galán), and discuss sectarian differences and the human penchant for conflict & killing while the woman seems intrigued by one of the men.

This is basically a low-budget companion piece to the events of “Kingdom of Heaven” (2005). “Soldier of God” came out later that same year, but only cost $325 thousand while “Kingdom” cost a whopping $130 million. Thankfully, the filmmaking doesn’t seem THAT low-budget: There’s a lot of beautiful desert photography, the editing is proficient and the score is aesthetic and moving. I encourage you to watch or re-watch “Kingdom of Heaven” first because it provides the background events and key names that will help you understand the situation here.

This is a dialogue-driven sword & sandal drama with flashes of action. The acting is well done for such low-budget fare. The problem is that too much of the verbiage is hard to discern and there’s no subtitle option. Another reviewer called the movie “a pointless exercise in verbose pretentiousness,” but some of the dialogue is quite good, at least what I heard anyway, particularly the discussion when the Jewish merchant visits.

Someone criticized the actions of a certain character on the grounds that a such-and-such wouldn’t do such-and-such. I disagree. I just went to coffee with a devotee of a certain noble belief system who recently got out of prison for murder, which he committed in a flash of angry frustration. Plus you have to consider the adrenaline rush of battle frenzy and the desire to remove something lingering & troubling.

I probably would’ve liked this flick a lot more if I was able to discern more than 50% of the dialogue.

The film runs 1 hour, 34 minutes and was shot in Dumont Dunes, California, with some exteriors done in Málaga, Andalucía, Spain.

GRADE: C