There have been innumerable films made about Jesus’ last days on Earth but there have only been a few made about what came afterwards. Written by Paul Aiello and Kevin Reynolds, the new film Risen attempts to explore those days from the perspective of a tribune named Clavius, who serves as Pontius Pilate's right-hand man.
Played by Joseph Fiennes, Clavius is a stoic soldier who spends his days doing the bidding of Pilate (Peter Firth), the weak-kneed leader who recently sentenced Jesus Christ to death.
The first major task that Pilate gives Clavius in the feature is to ensure that Jesus (Cliff Curtis), who is known in the film by the Hebrew iteration Yeshua, is dead. In one of the film’s most unsettling scenes of brutality, Clavius pokes a spear into...