English Civil War events were not very familiar to me, and there are not too many films about it (I remember seeing panoramic Cromwell (1970) some decades ago). The times were hectic, ideas were exuberant, but real life and people's absorption of them was rather shabby. To Kill a King focuses on the relationship between MP / Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell and Sir/General Thomas Fairfax in the post-war period from 1648 until the former's death, in 1658.Although Tim Roth is a fine actor and Dougray Scott seems good actor as well, I felt no profound contradiction or complexity between them; well, their approaches and motives were reasoned, but their depiction was somewhat perfunctory, via uneven course of events, mostly taking place indoors (many exterior or nature scenes provide more faithfulness). Rupert Everett as King Charles I was too reserved as well, female characters and performance were quite uninviting. I felt myself constantly watching a historical half-documentary that could have been helpful before respective exam :) Thus, more thank okay film, but no conceptional work for me... Of I have been spoiled by powerful war and costume dramas...

1645 is a crucial year but what happened is not clear in this film that concentrates more on personal issues and intimate details than on historical facts.The rivalry between Fairfax and Cromwell is purely circumstantial. It is not the very problem at the heart of the period. Cromwell is the one who reformed the army to lead them to victory. Cromwell is the one who had the eloquence and religious depth to inspire that newly reformed army to victory a first time against the king, and a second time against the king, and several more times against the Irish, the Scots and Spain. The second civil war is not clear in the film at all, apart from gritty details about hangings, killings and battlefield deaths.The debate around parliament and the king is essential and reduced here to a clash between personalities, a clash between the authority of the military and that of the political branch of government. It also reduces Cromwell to pure violence, anger, fits of aggressiveness, etc. But that is not the debate. The debate is in the very nature of the king. In 1649 it is feudalism that dies on the scaffold, and not only the king. It is not the question of blue or red blood, but the question of who or what appoints the king, is it god or is it parliament, or even is it the people? That third alternative is absolutely absent, as if the film ignored the formula "the government of the people, by the people and for the people", at the end of another civil war.This period then changed Europe, true enough, but also the world, and the end of the film with a jump from "Cromwell's revolution" to the "French Revolution" is absurd. It ignores the Glorious Revolution and the dismissal of the King by parliament, the establishment of rules for the choice or designation of successors on the throne by Parliament then, and the Declaration of Independence in America that explains how the people is fully justified to dismiss a king when the relations between this king and his people have distended and even gotten ruptured. For the first time ever in the feudal world that included the colonies in America a king, Charles I, was dismissed by his people and the representatives of this people.The film is not clear at all on another detail: the fact that there must have been only a few tens of thousands of electors in England at the time to elect the members of parliament. Only the propertied free people who had real estate or a business (that could include as property serfs and other permanently or temporarily indentured human beings along with cattle and economic equipment) and paid taxes for these possessions or businesses could vote. The House of Lords had been disbanded and the House of Commons only represented the propertied and business-endowed tax paying at least well-off people, the bourgeoisie in another word. The film thus does not have to mention that seven members of Cromwell's family were at one time members of parliament.It also can speak of the people as an abstract concept. The bourgeoisie was essentially a mercantile bourgeoisie and they possessed the fleet of the country and employed all the sailors. The crown had no fleet per se. Parliament, or rather the House of Commons, or what was left of it after various purges, was in the hands of the merchants and under the pressure of their fleet and sailors, and both were armed to defend themselves on the sea they were starting to conquer from the sails of Spain. This armament could easily be turned around.That makes history easy then. There was no legal basis to dismiss the king, and what's more execute him in the whole world, I mean Christian world of course, and parliament "abused" their power in that case, and yet they wrote the world's history because after them there was a simple jurisprudence: a people has the right to dismiss their king if that king is no longer governing in the interest of that people. In a country of common law, that is an important argument. In 1215 at the time of Magna Carta, the barons and the church had imposed to the king a few measures but never did they question his authority that came from god almighty anyway. And we all know that since T.S. Eliot used the argument in his "Murder in the Cathedral".The result is a very dubious Cromwell and a very haphazard approach of history, and a very long and high jump from 1649 to 1660 and the Restoration. But it is from 1649 to 1660 that the most important events occurred in Ireland, in Scotland and on the Seas against Spain, all for the sole profit of the merchants and the overseas maritime companies that were starting to emerge.But it is always interesting to see something about this period which is still taboo in England. No surprise that the BBC is mostly absent from this field of historical study.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

I'll keep it short and sweet, as many have already made accurate criticism of this film, and in general I agree.The film is a travesty, portraying Cromwell, inaccurately, as a 2-dimensional bully. This is compounded by terrible acting (as usual) by Tim Roth. The man just can not act! Here he spurts out each line like a child in a school play, relieved that he has managed to get yet another memorised line out of the way.Rupert Everett as Charles 1 was unconvincing, playing the part as a brute with no class. Charles was a Scot but there was not even the faintest hint of a Scottish accent here, and only the clumsiest inclusion of badly performed stutters. He had clearly not done his homework. I guess Alec Guinness set a standard for this part (in 'Cromwell') which may be impossible to surpass. But the difference is that Guinness was a good actor.Dougray Scott played Fairfax better, but it just got tiresome.As for the script, it was dire and lazy. Easy money. Don't expect any history lessons.I walked away from it half way through. Life's too short to waste it on this junk.This film demonstrates two things: Tim Roth can't act and Mike Barker (Director) can't direct. Just goes to show, it's down to who you know, not what you can do.

I was quite excited to see this being a fan of historical films and particularly interested in the Tudor and Stuart periods. The front of the video is presented in exactly the same style as Elizabeth which I thoroughly enjoyed. Elizabeth is relatively well researched and despite some poetic license depicts the early reign well. So this coupled with the acting prowess of Rupert Everett and Tim Roth all boded well. But what a pile of poopie. Over simplified, dreadfully inaccurate, - the list goes on = one of the most interesting periods of English History turned in to a bad Soap Opera. A significant part of the story is Fairfaxes refusal to sign Charles's death warrant. Well ladies and gentlemen in fact he was one of the first to sign. Suffice it to say the lines at the end "And England never again became a republic" (lol) sums up this little piece of filmery.