For those who are not familiar with the Biblical story, The Book of Daniel is about how prophecy and the fulfillment of that prophecy affected individuals, specifically, Daniel and his friends, Hebrew war captives of the Babylonians then subsequently the Persians, who are forced to serve kings who try to force them into culturally and spiritually adapt to the conquering majority’s culture and change his spiritual beliefs. Daniel and his friends manage to be true to their spiritual and cultural heritage while also effectively and faithfully serving those who conquered them, including saving the lives of people whom they would have considered the equivalent of devil worshippers in their homeland. The Book of Daniel is about being brave, faithful and excellent under all circumstances even in the face of condemnation of God or others.
The Book of Daniel does not fall into the same trap as many recent Biblical movie adaptations such as One Night with the King. The Book of Daniel does not change what makes the story great and thus inadvertently destroy the material. Instead like TNT’s The Bible Collection’s Joseph, The Book of Daniel finds a new way to frame a well known story and thus make it fresh for viewers who know the story well, but not ruin it for those who are learning about it for the first time.
Even though it is obvious that The Book of Daniel did not have a large enough budget to convincingly execute some of the more epic parts of the story, The Book of Daniel respectably reenacts them. The Book of Daniel’s strongest assets are its mature actors. I’m even willing to sign a waiver for Lance Heneriksen of Aliens, Millennium and Near Dark fame to play a Persian king. I’m not familiar with Robert Diano’s work, but he does an excellent job of playing the older Daniel and grounds the whole movie with his seasoned acting abilities. The younger actors do a good job, but you can see the gears shifting.
If The Book of Daniel has one flaw, it was that the movie wasn’t long enough and could have spent time fleshing out the parts of the story that aren’t detailed in the Bible. What would it have been like to be in an administration with an absentee king raving mad in the wilderness?
The Book of Daniel is a must see for Biblical believers of Old and New Testament and for non-believers, The Book of Daniel would satisfy for fans of such work as A Prayer for Owen Meany.