The Drama of ‘David’ Is Saved in the End

Adultery, fratricide, greed, envy and bloody battles galore--it’s the stuff that keeps the TV movie medium alive. And the Old Testament story of King David has it all--the kind of epic tale that makes for an almost irresistible long-form drama.

Right? Wrong. At least in the case of “David,” the latest installment in TNT’s series of biblical presentations.

Despite the earnest intentions that clearly went into its production, the two-part, four-hour drama drones on at such a lugubrious pace that it might as well have been subtitled “The Longest Story Ever Told.”

The picture begins oddly, with a quick-cut montage that tells the David story in truncated form beneath the opening titles, presumably to grab the viewer with a coming-attraction set of highlights. The story then leaps backward in time over the subtitle “Many years earlier,” and the promised highlights are a long time in coming.

The big-name headliners--Leonard Nimoy and Jonathan Pryce--are present only in the opening segment of the story. Nimoy is appropriately guru-like in the role of the prophet Samuel, who has been appointed by God to find a king for the Israelis. Pryce is Saul, the first, and ultimately the wrong, choice. And the usually low-keyed actor tears into the part with rug-chewing intensity, attacking nearly every scene with over-the-top, wide-eyed histrionics.

Nathaniel Parker’s David, on the other hand, has a bloodless quality--a blandness that, at its extremes, verges into brooding Hamlet-like melancholy. Fortunately, Sheryl Lee, as Bathsheba, brings some elements of passion to a part that, like the others, is burdened with speeches filled with far too many devout platitudes.

Interestingly, however, the ageless strength of the David story--with its mythic grasp upon universal emotions--eventually manages to survive the prosaic writing and uneven acting. The picture finally comes alive in its final hour or so, when David must deal with conflict between his children and an ultimate confrontation with his son, Absalom (played by Dominic Rowan). In that segment, the production finally gets in touch with the majesty and the power of this remarkable tale.

* Part 1 of “David” airs at 5, 7 and 9 p.m. Sunday on TNT. Part 2 airs at 5, 7 and 9 p.m. Wednesday. The network has rated the movie TV-PG (may not be suitable for young children).