DIRECTOR: Ridley Scott
CAST:
Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Djimon Hounsou, Oliver Reed, Derek Jacobi, Richard Harris,
Tomas Arana, Tommy Flanagan, Ralf Moeller, David Schofield, Spencer Treat Clark, Sven-Ole Thorsen
REVIEW:
Gladiator is the first sword-and-sandals epic in four decades, and harkens back to epic spectacle on a scale seldom mounted while updating the Roman epic with modern effects (and modern violence). Gladiator is a ferocious epic of sand and blood that might attract those who appreciated Rob Roy
, The Last of the Mohicans
, or Braveheart, but in some ways surpasses all of them for its near-perfect combination of epic spectacle, red-blooded action, and narrative prowess into a rousing and dynamic film.
The storyline is simple enough. In 180 AD, Roman General Maximus (Russell Crowe) has just smashed the final German stronghold standing in the way of Roman victory for his beloved, fading Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris), who looks on him as a son. Aurelius intends for Maximus to assume his powers upon his death, to safeguard Rome’s transition from Imperial dictatorship back to the Republic it was founded as, but this doesn’t sit well with Aurelius’ son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix). When he learns of his father’s intentions, Commodus murders the Emperor in a hysterical fit, then sentences Maximus to death when the honorable General refuses to pledge allegiance to him. Making a narrow escape from death but too late to save his wife and young son, the distraught and exhausted Maximus is picked up by a roving band of slave traders who take him to a remote Roman province, where he and other slaves, including Juba (Amistad’s Djimon Hounsou) and Hagan (Ralf Moeller, German bodybuilding champion of 1984 and a competitor in the 1988 Mr. Olympia) are bought by gladiator trainer Proximo (Oliver Reed, who died during filming). Forced to slaughter other gladiators to the entertainment of the bloodthirsty audience, Maximus has only one goal: to somehow make his way to Rome to confront Commodus and avenge his family.
While he had already established his acting ability in roles like a vicious neo-Nazi in 1992’s Romper Stomper, a hardass cop in 1997’s LA Confidential, and his Oscar-nominated performance as real-life tobacco industry whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand in 1999’s The Insider (requiring him to gain weight and wear age makeup to play approximately twice his age), Gladiator was the movie that catapulted New Zealand-born, Aussie-raised Russell Crowe into stardom and proved he could move from character actor to major movie headliner. Crowe’s performance here won him a Best Actor Oscar and proved his leading man action hero credentials. Crowe holds the camera’s attention with a smoldering intensity and brawny, ruggedly masculine charisma, making Maximus a hero to stand alongside Mel Gibson’s William Wallace and Liam Neeson’s Rob Roy. He’s commanding in his General scenes, convincingly physical in his many fight scenes, and shows range by being equally convincing in quiet, sympathetic moments as he is when he’s ferociously hacking other gladiators to death in the arena. Like Wallace and Rob Roy, Maximus is compulsively easy to root for because he’s an underdog, he’s a virtuous man who has been terribly wronged, and he’s played by an actor who sells all of it.
Joaquin Phoenix, the lone American in the principal cast, is effectively hissable villain material as the venal Commodus, yet as “boo hiss” worthy as he is at times, Phoenix and the filmmakers do not portray Commodus as “evil” per say, merely an unprincipled man of weak character who seeks through absolute power the kind of love and adoration he could never win from his father. Phoenix’s performance has its campy moments, as well as those guaranteed to earn boos from the audience, not to mention his ickiness factor getting bumped up by an incestuous interest in his sister Lucilla (Danish actress Connie Nielsen), but there are also moments where it is possible to feel a note of pity, if not sympathy. Connie Nielsen serves as the balance between the two dramatic poles of Maximus and Commodus, and the supporting cast, made up mostly of elder British thespians including Sir Richard Harris, Sir Oliver Reed, and Sir Derek Jacobi as a Senator opposed to Commodus, is reliably effective (Reed suffered a fatal heart attack during filming and a couple of his scenes had to be finished using CGI trickery).
Despite a running length of two and a half hours, Gladiator seldom drags. The film opens with his largest-scale battle sequence that brings to mind a little of the bloody chaos of Saving Private Ryan, and features a steady string of equally bloody action sequences in the arena. Blood spurts. Bodies get beheaded and cut in half. The crowd roars. Scott takes the time to emphasize how daunting the Colosseum looks when entered for the first time, and throws in some quiet dialogue scenes between the fighting and bloodletting, but despite some profound utterances delivered by Shakespearean thespians like Derek Jacobi about greatness being a vision, and the power that comes from controlling the mob, and some backstage political machinations pitting Commodus’ dictatorial intentions against the democratically-minded Senator Gracchus, one can tell Maximus’ struggle is where the movie’s energy and momentum really lies. While similar political intrigue scenes in Spartacus were as important as the meeting between liberty and tyranny on the battlefield, Gladiator starts to itch to get back to the arena after being away for too long. The recreation of ancient Rome is impressive, although some shots are too obviously CGI. Aside from the opening battle, the highpoint of the gladiatorial combat pits Maximus against hulking undefeated champion Tigris (Sven-Ole Thorsen), with tigers thrown in to up the ante. It’s easy to see ahead of time where the climax is going, but it’s a satisfying destination, nonetheless, with a little bit of unpredictability along the way, and what precedes it is, for the greater part, a rollicking ride.
****
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