The British musician and filmmaker Jeymes Samuel wanted to make a Biblical epic like “Ben-Hur,” with a side order of Biblical-adjacent “Spartacus,” but his way. The result is the satiric “The Book of Clarence,” starring LaKeith Stanfield as a dope-dealing striver in 33 AD Jerusalem.

The trailer looks like an action comedy, and it isn’t that, really, thought it contains both action and comedy. Does it work? I’d say no, and sort of, and in the end, almost. Broke and threatened with death by the local loan shark, Clarence hustles through his meager life as “a seller of ungodly herbs” with his friend Elijah (RJ Cyler). He takes care of his mother (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), who has been more or less forsaken by Clarence’s identical twin brother, Thomas (also played by Stanfield, though without much differentiation).

Thomas has grand things on his agenda: He’s one of Jesus’ 12 apostles, on a date with Biblical destiny. Clarence puts in his bid to join the circle, and ultimately lands on the idea of becoming a copycat Chosen One himself, performing fake miracles and gathering acolytes for prestige and profit.

It’s a ripe satiric premise, but “The Book of Clarence” wants more. Filming in Matera, Italy, where Mel Gibson shot “The Passion of the Christ,” Samuel feeds throwaway verbal jokes and anachronisms into a narrative played, disarmingly, for a spiritual story of one underestimated nobody’s path toward becoming a somebody.

Anna Diop, so good in the supernatural thriller “Nanny,” plays Lavinia, the local gangster’s sister; the tentative but palpable connection she has with Clarence is the movie’s grounding element. Once Clarence’s popularity draws the interest of Pontius Pilate (James McAvoy), the movie’s tangle of intentions gets knotted up in some frustrating ways. Is the movie best served by the Gibson-esque gore in the culminating scenes? Does it work to follow anguished screams with wisecracks from those dying on the cross?

Stanfield is a watchful, uniquely charismatic actor in nearly any context, though this context proves especially challenging. His determinedly low-key line readings have a way of flattening out the energy. On the other hand, would a more classically trained performer have made “The Book of Clarence” more persuasive, or just more harrumphy? Who’s to say?

Samuel’s first feature, the 2021 western “The Harder They Fall,” was all over the place more successfully. That one, like this one, had the benefit of Samuel’s terrific soundtrack. Samuel — whose musical stage name is The Bullitts — consistently bails out his latest film with a dozen or two songs in a supple half-dozen complementary styles, here with a song featuring Jay-Z, elsewhere leaning into an Old Hollywood orchestral sweep. The more this filmmaker can learn about matching his musical taste and invention with cinematic tonal range and control worthy of those sounds, the harder we’ll fall for whatever he does next.

MPA rating: PG-13 (for strong violence, drug use, strong language, some suggestive material and smoking)

Running time: 2:05

How to watch: In theaters