“Have No Fear: The Life of Pope John Paul II”
Tomorrow at 8 on ABC/Ch. 7
***½ (three and a half stars)
NO important dates in the life of Pope John Paul II fall this week.
And yet, this is the week ABC and CBS have chosen to air their dueling TV movies about his life.
Go figure.
It’s possible that neither network had enough faith in their movies to air them during the November ratings sweeps, which end tonight.
Or maybe they each felt that a movie about John Paul would be a great way to kick off the Christmas season.
Whatever the reasons, ABC beats CBS to the screen by four days with a TV movie that’s half the size. (CBS’s two-part, four-hour miniseries, starring Jon Voight as the pope, airs Sunday and Wednesday nights.)
The life of this particular pope is certainly rich enough to take four hours to dramatize.
However, ABC’s movie – titled “Have No Fear: The Life of Pope John Paul II” – proves you don’t necessarily need two hours to review the life of this remarkable man, whose life and papacy meant so much to so many.
And you don’t necessarily need a big-name star either. In ABC’s movie, John Paul is played from early adulthood to old age by German-born Thomas Kretschmann, a dead ringer for the Polish pope, who delivers one of the finest performances seen on TV this year.
“Have No Fear” was shot on location in Rome and Lithuania. It traces the life of Pope John Paul, starting with his childhood in Poland, continuing through the nightmare years of World War II and then on to post-war Poland, where the priest born Karol Wojtyla on May 18, 1920, rose through the church ranks and quietly challenged the authority of Poland’s Soviet-sponsored Communist government.
He was elected pope on Oct. 16, 1978, and in the ensuing years traveled the world, delivering his message of faith to tens of millions, including in his native Poland, whose independence he lived to see and helped bring about.
Kretsch-mann is 43 years old, but his portrayal of the elderly, ailing pope – stooped and shaking from Parkinson’s disease – is no less effective than his portrayal of the younger, vigorous man who would one day become pope and change the world.
adam.buckman@nypost.com
