The Christian Film Where They Shoot Jesus

Recapped and reviewed

Warnings: Incredibly racist movie where they shoot God with a gun. Long read because I couldn’t get the recap any shorter. Heidi Montag.

Father, forgive them, they knew not what they were doing. 

Assassin 33 A.D. (2020) is a movie where a masked-up hit squad travels back in time, mows down Roman guards in the Garden of Gethsemane, and puts a .45 in Jesus’ head in the first act. We’re not even halfway into the nearly two-hour film, and they’ve put down the King of Kings like Old Yeller. 

Let’s backtrack a bit. I happened upon this movie because a buddy of mine came over with THC gummies and I told him I wanted to watch something silly. I was told it was a Christian film about time travel where Heidi Montag dies in the first scene. I’m something of a connoisseur of goofy Christian content. There is a certain flavor of irreverence that only megachurch protestants with the best of intentions can produce. Naturally, I was on board. 

I’m not exaggerating when I say this film is a compelling case for blasphemy laws in this country. Pope Francis has some ex-communicating to do. If Martin Luther nailing his theses to that church door in Germany was the first domino that led to Assassin 33 AD, then we should go back in time and kill him to prevent our present timeline from happening.

Let us begin. 

As I said, Heidi Montag of The Hills fame is in this movie. She plays the wife of Brandt, the guy who is set up to be our tortured everyman with a crisis of faith, but he gets dropped like a hot potato pretty quickly. Brandt is driving along with his wife and two kids when, well, why don’t you tell me what happens in this scene?

Heidi Montag briefly puts on a weak British accent. “That British accent,” Brandt remarks. Heidi’s lip quivers, and she blurts out that God is about to do something miraculous through him, and then she’s hit by a truck. Of all the bullshit that happens in this movie (later, the corpse of Christ is teleported from the past into a jihadist laboratory), this is the most confusing part. “That British accent.” Huh? Thank the Lord for that truck.

All you need to know is that Brandt is the only survivor of the crash, and he blames Jesus for taking his family from him. Let’s get to people who matter now.

Ram Goldstein (lanky, awkward, virgin) is a boy genius who gets hired by Ahmed (jihadist played by a Mexican) to work on a secret project with a team of other brilliant young minds: two non-white comic relief characters, and a Christian love interest with an incredible rack. Her name is Amy because the film was forced to give her one.

According to the Zoom call that Ahmed (played by Gerardo Davila) has with his jihadist boss, the machine they’re building is a teleportation device. They’ll be able to materialize bombs wherever they want. In the mind of this movie, Islamic extremists are sort of always thinking about bombs and setting them off wherever. This thing would be a technological revolution, the veritable iPhone of “blowing things up.” 

This Zoom call is significant because it informs us that Ram was supposed to invent a matter transfer machine, but accidentally invented a time machine instead. The plot to go back in time and kill Jesus Christ is then improvised on the spot. Ahmed sees that Ram’s invention can maybe send a pencil eraser five minutes into the past and he’s immediately like, “train this thing on Jerusalem, year 33 A.D. Boys, we’re hunting a God.”

It’s incredibly on sight between Ahmed and Jesus.

By the way, the jihadist boss pictured above killed Ahmed’s parents when Ahmed was a child. Love to do a Zoom call with the bestie. 

Theologically speaking, we would need the world’s most distinguished, preeminent scholars to untangle the rather impressive ideological knot that is this movie. There is not a second of this movie that is not doing a theological kick-flip into splits. Ahmed seems to believe that, yes, Jesus was a prophet, but not the son of God (Jim Carroll, the director of this movie, clearly Googled “Islam + Jesus + beliefs?''), and that going back in time to kill Him™ will rid the world of those filthy Christians.

But if Ahmed really believes that Jesus was a great prophet, then should he really be putting a hit out on him? Should we be murdering a great prophet with a gun? Isn’t that probably haram? Are we certain that being killed by a gang of wizards with magic weapons won’t make it into a Wikipedia page for one Jesus of Nazareth? Ahmed, do we want to maybe take a breather and think some things through for a second? Do we want to at least sleep on it?

Of course not. Ahmed is a man of action. Ram barely has a moment to realize he’s invented time travel before Ahmed restrains him, shoots both his parents in the head (RIP), and tells Ram that if he wants to save them by going back in time then he’ll get this fancy new machine up and running. Ahmed’s goons are in Gethsemane and emptying clips into Biblical figures roughly five minutes after Ram plugs the thing in. Any% New Testament Speed Run [RECORD TIME, NOT CLICK BAIT]. 

And guess what? Brandt is among those goons! Yes, the guy married to Heidi Montag (RIP) works for Ahmed, and Ahmed, I shit you not, entices him to join the hit squad by saying something along the lines of, “don’t you want revenge for what Jesus let happen to your family?” 

Oh my God.

Anyway, Brandt accepts. The historical figure of Jesus will soon regret allowing that truck to run over my wife, Heidi Montag, Brandt reasons internally, perhaps in a British accent, in her loving memory. What happens next is, I think, the most scene ever. That’s not a typo. It is the most scene ever in one of the movies of all time. 

The squad, dressed all in black and armed to the teeth, warps to Gethsemane on the night Jesus is betrayed by Judas. I must stress that this is played straight. It is the most serious thing in the world. The team easily identifies Jesus because he has long hair, a beard, a robe, and is kind of fruity. “Target verified,” Brandt mutters, to my absolute delight. At this point, I am squeezing my friend’s arm and audibly saying, “no they’re not, no they’re not, no they’re not!” 

Oh, but they are. They fire on the Roman guards and the disciples, obliterating them. The Romans don’t even have time to use their silly little spears. Time travel was invented five minutes ago, by the way. 

Brandt approaches the wounded Jesus. The tone of the whole thing is very, “how do you like me now, motherfucker?” He trains the glock on Christ Our Lord and says something like, “you won’t be giving your life for me, because I’m taking it from you.” Jesus, in flawless English, tells Brandt he has already died for him. “Lies!” Brandt declares before shooting him twice in the head. 

Before our plucky team of scientists can save the day, it’s important to note that the bad guys do teleport Jesus’ corpse back (forward?) into the present. I think that matters. I think? I don’t fully follow the logic of the movie, but there are multiverses, kind of, and I think there’s one wherein Jesus’ body is hanging out somewhere in 2020 and he was never crucified because he was shot. With a gun.  

Regardless, the scientists have to go back in time to try and stop the hit squad in a new, second timeline. But the scientists don’t have guns, so they come up with a pretty brilliant plan to shove sticks into the hit squad’s bodies as they materialize, thus impaling and killing them (RIP). This works, but sadly only on a few of the gunmen (you didn’t want to maybe gather up some more sticks, boy genius?) and the survivors quickly kill the non-white comic relief characters. Amy also sustains a mortal injury. 

One thing I appreciate about this movie is how fast people fire their guns. No monologuing. No standing around like you forgot you had a weapon. When you have a gun in this movie, praise be to Chekhov, you use it. Every scene with a gun has a body count. I imagined the “triple kill” voice from Halo several times. By the end of this encounter, everyone in the hit squad except Budget Bradley Cooper and one jihadist are dead. Only Ram is left unscathed on the other side. Amy lies dying, moaning, “nooooo, you have to save Jeeeeeesus,” to Ram. Raaaaaaammmm….

What a dumb name.

In this second timeline, Jesus is fine. Well, he’s being escorted away by Roman soldiers to be crucified, but that’s, like, good. That’s what’s supposed to happen. We’re back in canon. He hasn’t been shot by a time-traveling American, so it’s all about perspective really. Brandt and the other member of the hit squad, meanwhile, are stuck in Jerusalem with one gun between them. And Brandt wants to finish the job. 

I suppose I should also mention there’s a third timeline where Simon (the Black comic relief character that this film loves to unceremoniously kill, he dies like four times (RIP x 4)) warps to Gethsemane where he finds Jesus praying and tries to talk him out of the crucifixion. By the logic of this film, Simon is trying to sway the Lord of Lords from absolving our sins, condemning us all to the eternal fires of hell. “They really mess you up,” Simon says, in addition to telling Jesus that the book He™ wrote (the Bible) is a real bestseller, but they do crucify his oomf [1], Peter, upside down. So.

Getting back to Brandt and jihadist #2, they disguise themselves in local garb and go looking for Jesus. Jihadist #2, rather inexplicably, steals a tomato from a street vendor and takes a bite out of it like it’s an apple. I know it’s a tomato, because when the vendor gets mad, jihadist #2 says, “it’s just a tomato.” 

This is where my head actually exploded, just like Jesus’ in timeline A. There were no tomatoes in this part of the world in 33 A.D. They were brought from the Americas in the early 16th century. You know what they did have in this part of the world? Apples. The fruit that you would naturally eat by chomping right into it. Remember that whole Garden of Eden thing? Also, did you think you could just eat a tomato without paying for it? Is that how you behave at Kroger? Look at this mouth breather chewing on his stolen tomato.

I’m just beside myself. 

Anyway, Roman soldiers come, and the jihadist goes, “back off!” like a bouncer at a club. The soldiers unsheathe their swords, prompting the jihadist to shoot them with his gun, as shown in one of my favorite movie stills of all time.

New computer desktop wallpaper just dropped.

Ultimately, however, the two are disarmed and taken into Roman custody. It was at this point that I made the daring prediction that Brandt and the jihadist would be the two criminals crucified on either side of Jesus at Golgotha. Let me tell you something, I physically stood up and punched the air when I got to this part.

Director Jim Carroll, if it wasn’t a sin I would kiss you on the mouth for this.

Jesus, I later discovered, is played by a fourth-place finalist in the seventh season of American Idol. I’m also reminded, while rewatching this scene, that Simon kept referring to The Passion of the Christ as “your movie” in his conversation with Jesus in Gethsemane. Whatever. I didn’t really care what happened after this scene, because in that moment I had won Assassin 33 A.D.

More wacky stuff happens, for sure. Big Evil Jihadist Boss warps into Jesus’ tomb and takes some of his DNA, I assume to clone him. He leaves glow sticks behind in the empty tomb, confusing Mother Mary. Mary gives Ram and Amy the warp bracelet thing they need to get back to the present, and she has wrapped it like a gift. Brandt was a secret good guy all along, working to infiltrate this jihadist group for the U.S. government.

Wait, what?

He’s supposed to have been an undercover government agent, but he eagerly accepted a spur-of-the-moment assignment to shoot the Prince of Peace? The Good Shepherd? The Bread of Life? And then he actually shot Him? Well, maybe that’s not so surprising. Kind of classic CIA behavior when I really think about it. 

Gerardo Davila did not include this movie on his website. 

The film ends with Ahmed getting stabbed with the same knife that killed his parents (he kept it as a souvenir, we don’t have time to get into it) and Ram forgiving Brandt for shooting Amy and killing her in timeline B. For what it’s worth, both “Ram” and “Brandt” existing in a movie with audio quality this bad was rough. When Jesus is hanging on the cross and tells Ram he has to forgive Brandt, I went, “what?” 

Everything gets sorted out in timeline F, or whichever timeline everything is fine in. It takes a few attempts, but we get there. Even the ethnic comic relief characters get to survive. They do that “comic relief character” thing at the end where, while Ram and Amy share a triumphant kiss, one awkwardly tries to hug the other, and the one being hugged is like, “man, get off me!” 

There are some things I wanted to note before we conclude. 

The comedy that’s intentional in this film is really, really bad. In one scene, they capture the Mexican comic relief character to kill him for like the third time and when the jihadists ask where he came from he defiantly says, “Scotty beamed me down from the Enterprise.” There are a lot of little quips before getting shot. A couple of Simon’s jokes actually worked on me. When Mary, the Mother of God, gives Ram the warp bracelet thing they need, he says, “muchas gracias.” 

The unintentional comedy, meanwhile, is transcendent. There is a point where Ram is dying in Amy’s arms (everyone gets their chance to die) and he asks her to pull out her Bible app, iDisciple, to check the New Testament to see if they were written into it. They were.

What else, what else? There’s a scene where Brandt screams, “you’re a fraud!” at Jesus while he’s dying on the cross. Honestly, this whole movie really reactivated the shuttered Catholic offices in my brain. “Please do not yell at Christ,” reads an official statement issued by one such newly reopened office. 

We’re also shown a timeline wherein the jihadists were successful and Jesus never sacrificed himself for our sins. The sky is green and there are smoking ruins of skyscrapers everywhere and the Mexican comic relief character explains, “this is a world without forgiveness.” I think they shot him after that, in the No Forgiveness Zone, so that version of him is just in hell forever now (que descanse en paz, paisano).

Oh, the actual ending of this movie has Brandt going back in time to stop the truck from hitting and killing Heidi Montag, which seems like a waste. Doesn’t this cause a massive rip in everything? Also, Jesus Himself™ promised to take Brandt to heaven when they were crucifixion buddies a few scenes ago. Like, I don’t know, maybe both Brandt and his family should die so they can be in heaven. If I had a guarantee from the Big Man Upstairs, I’d rather just be in heaven. It has to be better than Earth, where I’m married to Heidi Montag and putting up with her weird little impressions. 

Last thing. The movie has a post-credits sequel teaser. I actually punched my friend with joy at this. “They did it!” I screamed. “Director Jim Carroll, you crazy son of a bitch!” In one of the timelines (I think the one where Jesus’ dead body is sprawled out in a lab somewhere, or maybe the one where Ahmed cloned him), a wounded Ram and Amy are captured by soldiers, one of which asks, “I wonder what the antichrist wants them for.” They openly work for the antichrist and call him the antichrist. Fun!

Well, that’s Assassin 33 A.D. What else is there to say? There is another version of this film called Black Easter that was specifically made to be less racist, but I haven’t seen it. Please don’t watch either version. I think this movie should be added to the Criterion Collection, and I think Jim Carroll should be in jail, or at least exiled. I would ban it in every country. Five stars.

It is finished. Muchas gracias.