The filmmakers split time between history and personal drama in ways that do full service to neither.

It aspires to be an epic drama but suffers from an acute identity crisis: It can't decide if it wants to be history, drama, or a cry for peace in the Mideast.

It's hard to take the film seriously with [its] contrivances, including a hokey music score, dialogue designed solely to give us historical information.

O Jerusalem is as overstated and expository as a historical pageant, from the drippy music to a sputtering, running gag involving funky old jalopies to clichd speeches and teary-eyed deaths and a final voice-over crying out for peace.