Throughout the last two years there's been a slew of faith based films with various degrees of commercial and artistic success. The stories and the genres have been constantly eclectic, but all of them have that one moment where the storytelling is cast aside in favor of a sermon that exalts the positive message but derails the impact of the narrative.

The new film Risen, which is produced by Sony Pictures, does no such thing. Even though the film dramatizes a biblical story that has been brought to the screen many times, Kevin Reynolds' screenplay and direction never looses sight of the fact that most moviegoers, even extremely religious ones, go to the theater to watch a story unfold and not to be preached at. In that regard, Risen is a complete success. Reynolds' take on the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Jesus doesn't strive to break new artistic ground but it does manage to be extremely watchable and entertaining.

In order to do this, Reynolds turns his version of this story into a detective mystery with a classic film noir anti-hero as the protagonist. Joseph Fiennes plays Clavious, a powerful Roman military Tribune that has a pretty heady task. His superiors are not satisfied with killing Jesus in the worst possible way, they want to destroy his teachings and leave no room for a legacy. Which is basically the main character's mission in Risen. He is to track down, by any means necessary, the 'stolen' body of Christ in order to prove that there has not been a resurrection.

The twist of this particular narrative is not whether the resurrection is real even though that moment leads to the films most moving and emotionally satisfying moments. The novelty here is injecting the conventions of a traditional detective film noir into a biblical story. Therefore the non believer discovers his faith much in the same way that Rick is willing to sacrifice his love for Ilsa's political beliefs in Casablanca or even how Han Solo eventually came to be the one that declares that everything related to the force is "all true" in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

The film's emotional vitality comes directly from Kevin Reynolds' solid grip of the convention of the genre's he has chosen, and it is also greatly enhanced by the main cast's solid work. Fiennes performance goes past standard leading man charisma and gives the film it's appropriate emotional weight during it's final section. It's impressive enough to ponder why this actor hasn't worked more steadily since Shakespeare in Love.  Even so, the best performance of the film belongs to Cliff Curtis as Yeshua. The actor expertly matches the tone of the movie portraying the most human version of Christ to reach the screen yet. His powers are not undefinable and mystical, they come straight from his humanity. The film does a really good job of placing this as a subtext in what turns out to be a very satisfying and entertaining mystery with a great message that does not need to be exalted or spoon fed to the audience.

Risen is now playing in theaters.