Hollywood on Crusade

As it happened, however, Scott and Monahan settled on a dramatic period just before the Third Crusade, when the feuding Crusader barons of what had become known as the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem were forced to confront the growing power of Saladin. King Richard gets only a late cameo. The film's hero is Balian of Ibelin, a Latin Kingdom baron whose historical claim to fame is that he led the defense of Jerusalem against Saladin.

An unintended consequence of this choice was a charge by author James Reston Jr. that Scott, Monahan and Fox had appropriated portions of his 2001 book "Warriors of God," a popular history of the Third Crusade whose opening chapters highlight many of the same dramatis personae as the film. Reston's book experienced a spike in sales after 9/11 and was optioned by veteran producer Mike Medavoy of Phoenix Pictures. Medavoy, in turn, sent it to Scott, who was known to be interested in the topic.

Reston and his lawyers have threatened to sue.

Fox, Scott and Monahan have denied the charge. "There was no

infringement, period," Monahan wrote in an e-mail. "I've been familiar with the fall of the Latin Kingdom for thirty-odd years."

A more positive consequence of choosing this slice of history was that since Balian's was a name few moviegoers would know, the filmmakers could turn him into whatever kind of hero they chose. They turned him into Orlando Bloom, wielding a broadsword this time instead of the elfish bow he carried in "Lord of the Rings."

He also got a wholly fictional back story -- and a distinctly non-12th-century point of view.

'I Put No Stock in Religion'

Balian is a man on a mission. A French blacksmith whose beloved wife has just committed suicide, he kills an evil priest who disrespects the dead woman, then heads for Jerusalem. He hopes to atone for both her sin and his, but, pilgrimage complete, his prayers go unanswered.

"It seems I've lost my religion," he tells a companion, a member of an order of fighting monks called the Hospitallers who serves as his spiritual guide.

"I put no stock in religion," the Hospitaller replies. "In the word 'religion' I've seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination before the will of God." Holiness, he explains, is to be found "in right action and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves."

These are words to live by. Balian, who's been made a knight by now, aligns himself with the faction in Jerusalem that believes in coexisting peacefully with Muslims. In the small fiefdom he has implausibly inherited from his long-lost father, he rolls up his sleeves to help his combined Muslim, Christian and Jewish workforce make the desert bloom. When war breaks out and some poor folk are in danger of being overrun by Saladin's cavalry, he leads a seemingly hopeless charge to save them.

Oh, and he's in love with the Queen of Jerusalem, and she with him, but he refuses to allow her scummy warmonger of a husband to be killed so he can marry into the throne himself. Predictably, Saladin and the Latin Kingdom are soon at war, though Saladin -- played with craggy-faced gravitas by the Syrian actor and director Ghassan Massoud, who makes Bloom look about 12 years old -- has to be provoked into it.