It's the life of David (Richard Gere) who would be the King of the Isrealites. Prophet Samuel chooses the youngest son of Jesse of Bethlehem. He dies and leaves a message to King Saul (Edward Woodward) that God has forsaken him but not his people. In the battle against the Philistines, David strikes down the giant Goliath. David befriends Saul's son Jonathan who saves him from Saul's plots against him. After Jonathan and Saul are killed in battle with the Philistines, David is crowned king. The Godly rule is brought down by David's affair with the married Bathsheba (Alice Krige).Everything is fine until Richard Gere shows up. It's a bit slow sometimes but Woodward is a solid British actor. The scale is big enough when it's required. Goliath is great. It's all good but there is something too modern about Gere's beautiful hair. His mannerisms and his voice is too modern, too American and too different from everybody else. He simply looks out of place. Otherwise, this could have worked.

This thing looks, sounds and feels like the Reader's Digest version of some lame, 1980s, network TV miniseries that's had most of the action scenes cut out and a couple of nude scenes put in. I don't know how much money they spent on it, but it looks very cheap and low budget compared to the biblical epics that preceded it and it can't hold a candle to the big screen spectacles that followed it. The direction is lifeless and at times awkward. The story is paper thing and provides no subtext to any of King David's life. It neither grounds itself in realism nor takes on the moral and ethical questions posed by the source material. The performances, as a whole, aren't so bad with Richard Gere being the only one who looks out of place. And that's true in just about every way. The rest of the cast has an accent. Gere doesn't. Yeah, it's THAT kind of motion picture. Besides being proof that Alice Krige is one of those women who did get better looking as she got older, this movie simply doesn't have enough to offer.If you're unfamiliar with the tale, Saul (Edward Woodward) was king of ancient Israel. He offended God and the prophet Samuel (Denis Quilley) anointed a shepherd boy named David (Ian Sears) to be the next leader of the Jews. David joins the army, slays Goliath and rises to be Israel's greatest general. Then Saul's jealously and resentment cause him to turn against David, who flees and spends years in exile. Only after Saul dies on the battlefield does David assume the throne. He falls in love with Bathsheba (Alice Krige), and gets her husband killed so he can have her. That causes the prophet Nathan (Nial Buggy) to tell David he shall pay for his sin, which he does by needing to have his rebellious son Absalom (Jean-Marc Barr) assassinated. David's plans to built a temple for the Ark of the Covenant go unfulfilled, but he does leave behind another son, Solomon, to be king.The best things about King David are the work of Woodward as Saul, Quilley in a small role and Samuel and Cherie Lunghi in an even smaller role as Saul's daughter. The rest of the production ranges from "eh" to "ugh", highlighted by Gere's infamous diaper dance. If you haven't heard about it, after Saul dies and David comes to Jerusalem with the Ark, he strips down to his underwear and boogies through the city. It is there in the Bible, but that's no excuse. You can't stick Richard Gere in what looks like a diaper and have him wildly gyrate around and expect people not to roll their eyes. It doesn't look ridiculous. It looks retarded. If they had to have that scene in the film, it was absolutely essential to somehow prepare the audience for it so their reaction wouldn't be "WTF?" That didn't happen and so it's hard not to burst out laughing when Gere starts shaking him moneymaker.David was a warrior king, yet there's little warfare on display here. If you're not going to do that, it become essentially to give some depth to the political and religious conflict both between Saul and David and between the kings of Israel and the prophets. That doesn't happen either. This is a very shallow and superficial recitation of Biblical stories without any elaboration or context. This wasn't a movie made for adults, but nude scenes with Krige and Lunghi keep it from being for kids or the whole family.Bruce Beresford's direction is unimaginative except where it's inexplicable. There are too many times when he has the camera in the exact wrong place or the exact wrong distance and his staging possesses neither naturalism nor grandeur. Combine with the obviously limited budget, King David is the most visually boring religious movie I've ever seen.But here's the thing. King David isn't so bad that you can fun mocking it. It's just limp and flat and without any ambition. Don't bother with it.

"King David" is a entertaining Biblical Epic that stays pretty close to the source story of how a young Hebrew named David ascends to the throne as Israel's second King.I remember reading Rex Reed's review of the film and how much disdain he had for Richard Gere's performance. He said he looked like he was checking behind the camera to make sure no one stole his motorcycle. At the time I thought the raking over the coals was amusing and I had decided not to see the film. I'm sure many other readers of Rex Reed made the same decision as well.Well, on hindsight, Rex Reed and many other " movie reviewers" have done this movie a great disservice. I just saw this "King David" for the first time this year and I thought it was definitely one of the better Biblical Epics to come out of the Hollywood film industry.Fortunately with VHS and DVD, "King David" the movie, has the opportunity to find the audience it should have had twenty five years ago. This movie will find it's audience and as for the words of Rex Reed...

I admit I'm biased when it comes to Bible stories, especially really great Bible stories. So I was pretty skeptical when I picked up this movie, but I'd been wanting to see a good film version of the Life of David ever since I taught a class on I&II Samuel. I should have trusted my instincts and passed on this movie. The fact that they changed some details of the Biblical story isn't nearly as bad as the fact that they changed the entire theme of the story of David. In the movie, David has this obsession with wanting to see God face to face, and this plays itself in everything he does. He also has this theology based on emotions. Now this is a popular idea today (God deal with man through the heart and emotions only), but it just doesn't fit with David's story which is one of submission and trust. One of the problems with making a movie like this is that the story is much much to big to be told in a two hour film. I'd like to see a Lord of the Rings style telling of David's life. The narrator is horrible, and he sounds like he's reading scripture when he's not. The Goliath fight is aweful. Goliath doesn't even speak, but has his shield bearer (who doesn't bother bearing a shield) taunt the Israelites and David. David chunks about 6 rocks before he is actually able to kill the giant. Then he's really sad about it. He says to God in a weepy kind of voice "So be it" before cutting off Goliath's head. COME ON!!!! In the real story he says "You come against me with a sword and a spear and a javlain, but I come against you in the name of the Lord God of Hosts. This day I will cut off your head and give your flesh to the birds of the air nad the beasts of the field that the world may know that there is a God in Israel." I mean, who cuts that line out??? Another lousy thing was when David's first son by Bathsheba dies and the movie deals with it by a little narration scene. There's no fasting, no laying on his face for days, even the line "I will go to him, but he will not return to me" is cut and used at Absolem's death instead. All we get is the stupid narrator saying "David's first son died, but God gave him another one named Soloman." STUPID STUPID STUPID!!! More lousy stuff: The young boy who plays David as a kid looks like a fairy, and judging by the Bathsheba scene, baby oil was the most common substance for cleaning oneself in Ancient Israel.The acting is mediocre with the exception of the guy who plays Samuel who is wonderful, and the guy who plays Absolem who is terrible.The set and costumes are ridiculous for the most part (especially the wigs), but David actually looks like a king some of the time which is a refreshing change from Saul.Finally, I can't imagine what they were thinking when they slapped a PG-13 rating on this movie. There are two extended Nude scenes one of which is a lengthy full frontal shot of Bathsheba rubbing the aforementioned baby oil all over herself. This movie should be rated R, and if someone tackles this story as a film project in the future I hope that they make an accurate R rated version.