BLOODY DIFFICULT RIDLEY SCOTT'S CRUSADE TO MAKE 'KINGDOM OF HEAVEN' WITHOUT ANGERING CHRISTIANS OR MUSLIMS.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

Ridley Scott's Crusades epic ``Kingdom of Heaven'' contains all the requisite sword-fighting and merry mayhem, but the movie's key moment wasn't in the script.

The setup: Following a long and bloody siege, the legendary Muslim warrior Saladin has conquered Jerusalem and enters the city's palace. Inside the building, he sees a cross that was knocked to the ground during the bombardment. Saladin gently picks up the cross and sets it on a table, returning it to a place of honor.

``It's about respect for another religion,'' Scott says. ``It wasn't planned. I just noticed the cross on the ground, and I asked Ghassan (Massoud, the Syrian actor playing Saladin), 'What would you do?' And he said, `It's a very strong symbol of Christianity, just like the crescent is for the Muslims. I wouldn't want to see it on the floor.'

``And that was it,'' Scott continues. ``Gently does it. So maybe there's a teeny bit of understanding of the other's faith because, at the end of the day, we both thank the same God.''

With ``Kingdom of Heaven,'' Scott may well have pulled off the impossible - a movie about the Crusades that won't cause any controversy, no small trick in any period of time, much less in a post-9/11 world. The fact that the film is ``pretty down the middle,'' as Scott puts it, can be read as both a positive and a negative, since the absence of contention could also indicate the absence of a point of view that goes beyond the conventional.

First a brief history lesson: Muslims had occupied Jerusalem since 638, allowing Christians and Jews access to the city's holy sites. Pope Urban II coordinated the first Crusade with an eye on halting Muslim dominance in the region. Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099 in a bloody massacre that saw 70,000 to 100,000 civilians killed.

``Kingdom of Heaven'' takes place between Crusades, focusing on a period of relative peace late in the 12th century during the brief reign of Baldwin IV. Baldwin again opened Jerusalem to all faiths. As depicted in the film, Baldwin enjoys a good relationship with Saladin, though agitators on both sides press the leaders for war. When Baldwin dies from leprosy, the Christian fanatics gain control and attack the Muslims, which leads to reprisals and so on and so forth.

``It's like we say at the end of the movie: 'A thousand years later and Jerusalem is still in conflict,' '' says Orlando Bloom, who plays Balian, a blacksmith-turned-knight entrusted with defending Jerusalem from Saladin's attacking forces.

``It really does feel like, 'When are we going to learn?' ``Bloom adds. ``And I guess the message of the movie is: 'One can only hope.' ''

That message is being praised by one organization that typically vilifies Hollywood. The Council on American-Islamic Relations has given ``Kingdom of Heaven'' a thumbs-up, praising Scott for his ``balanced and positive depiction of Islamic culture during the Crusades.''

``It is, unfortunately, a rare occasion when a Muslim filmgoer can leave the theater feeling good about a movie's portrayal of Islam,'' says Rabiah Ahme, communications director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. ``This film managed to show the horrors of war without associating those horrors with a particular faith or culture.''

Scott says ``Kingdom of Heaven,'' credited to screenwriter William Monahan, possesses a ``Boy Scout'' ethic. He and Monahan were less interested in the conflicts between Christianity and Islam than they were in examining the code of the knight, the imperative to behave in the right way and do the right thing.

``We could use more Boy Scouts today,'' says Scott, a professed agnostic. ``It's very easy to smirk and be cynical, which is a contemporary disease. Cynicism is our enemy. Having ethics and utilizing one of our most beautiful words - grace, a word that has disappeared out of our vocabulary - is, to me, something worth examining.''

So instead of focusing on the thornier aspects of the Crusades or attempting to find some contemporary resonance in the movie's history, ``Kingdom of Heaven'' follows Bloom's Balian on a journey of redemption that doesn't stray far from the well-worn paths that most reluctant heroes travel in epic movies.

``It's not really a movie about the Crusades,'' says Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian studies and comparative literature at Columbia University. Scott brought in Dabashi - and others - as a historical consultant on ``Kingdom of Heaven,'' and Dabashi found few problems with the movie's content. (Historical accuracy is another matter, but Scott would be the first to point out that ``Kingdom'' isn't a classroom lesson.)

``It's a typical film of Ridley Scott,'' Dabashi says. ``A man at the end of hope goes on a journey and restores his hope. It just happens that this journey takes place in the context of the Crusades. There is an examination of religious faith, but in a generic sort of way that emphasizes commonality instead of differences.''

``Kingdom of Heaven'' was embroiled in a bit of controversy last August when The New York Times ran an article with religious scholars and activists commenting on an early version of the movie's screenplay - a version, it turns out, that was completely out of date.

``You know what that's classified as? Industrial espionage,'' Scott says, answering his own question. ``It's irritating not only to have something stolen, but something that was from 2002 when the idea wasn't in fruition.''

But UCLA law professor Abu el-Fadl, the most outspoken early critic of the movie, says his comments may have had some lasting value.

``They seem to have taken a screenplay that had some enormous problems and dealt with them in a way that was constructive,'' el-Fadl says. ``If that script had been made verbatim, it would have been offensive to Muslims.''

Counters Dabashi, who went through an early version of the screenplay as well: ``The reason I stayed involved was that the ultimate message of the movie is love and dignity and respect. It's not offensive to either side - unless you find tolerance offensive.''

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) CRUSADE

`Kingdom of Heaven' takes a look at the original `Desert Storm'

(2) no caption (scene from ``Kingdom of Heaven'')

(3) Orlando Bloom asd Balian

(4) Liam Neeson as Godfrey of Ibelin.