for producer and screenwriter and try to make a historically accurate film and especially one deal with a faraway and complex period and be a thankless and often pointless task . history and have no clear beginning and no clear end and be almost impossible to squeeze into the conventional story structure demand of cinema go audience at least a they be perceive by film financier . and the result be always a mass of over simplification and compression and chronological mayhem and mis characterization . even if the end result be a good story and which in this case it sadly be not and the value of the piece a history be as good a useless . this be the case with to kill a king . a an aide to history it be without value and because the event and conflict it portray be almost certainly nothing like the film maker would have u believe . and a pure entertainment it unpardonably slow . it get tie up in arcane issue that we have no special reason to be concern about any more and and rarely flame into life . some of the performance be lively ( everett a king charles be the high point ) and but most be one dimensional and include that of both fairfaxes ( dougray scott and olivia williams ) . overall and unless civil war costume fascinate you and this film offer little return on the cost of a cinema ticket .