THE 13th WARRIOR (Touchstone) Starring: Antonio Banderas, Vladimir Kulich, Dennis Storhoi, Omar Sharif, Diane Venora. Screenplay: William Wisher and Warren Lewis, based on "Eaters of the Dead" by Michael Crichton. Producers: John McTiernan, Michael Crichton and Ned Dowd. Director: John McTiernan. MPAA Rating: R (violence, gore, adult themes) Running Time: 104 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
From the Department of Token Praise: Give John McTiernan and Michael Crichton some credit for an action film in which the hero is an Arab. After years of Middle Eastern fanatics as Hollywood's favorite post-Cold War villains, THE 13th WARRIOR features as its protagonist Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan (Antonio Banderas, looking somber and pensive in heavy eye liner), a diplomat and poet in 10th century Baghdad. Banished to an unpleasant nomadic ambassadorship after a dalliance with a powerful man's wife, Ibn Fahdlan happens upon a group of Norsemen who have recently lost their king. When another king sends word that help is needed against a hideous foe, the heir apparent Buliwyf (Vladimir Kulich) leads a band of thirteen warriors -- including the reluctant Ibn Fahdlan -- to defeat the ghoulish Wendol, who eat those they slay.
All right, so the Arab hero is played by a Spaniard -- Hollywood needs to crawl before it can stagger in a remotely straight line. The problem with THE 13th WARRIOR isn't its multicultural sensitivity, but the unlikely context in which that subtext is placed. At its core, the film is the kind of swords-and-shields romp little seen since the early '80s heyday of Schwarzenegger as CONAN THE BARBARIAN and Singer as THE BEASTMASTER. There are dimly lit battles, inhuman foes, tankards of ale and much bonding between brothers-in-arms. That the bonding occurs between rambunctious polytheistic Nordic guys and a devout Muslim gives the narrative a funky anachronistic flavor -- "Dungeons and Dragons" for the "why can't we all just get along" '90s.
There's nothing automatically off-putting about watching men exchanging prayers in the first millennium -- it's not as though the 20th century introduced the concept of tolerance. It just happens to be the most obvious example of THE 13th WARRIOR's insistence on attending to subplots and subtext when it hasn't provided the basic framework for an adventure. Ibn Fahdlan's Norse comrades are so interchangeable and lacking in personality that the press notes identify them both by name and by some trait that might jog the memory -- "Helfdane (Fat)," "Ragnar (Dour)," and so on. The Wendol remain shadowy and indistinct, never developing into truly threatening villains despite the gasps that accompany the mention of their name. Meanwhile, there's time spent on a blink-and-you'll-miss-it romantic interlude for Ibn Fahdlan, and a bit of Norse political intrigue which exists largely to provide one character a chance to scowl and flip his fur cloak dramatically every time he appears on screen. Thank heavens for the occasional anarchic battle scene to remind us that this is in fact an adventure film.
Those battle scenes certainly serve their visceral purpose, perhaps enough so to please the blood 'n' guts crowd. It's just that the whole mess is often too busy to get down to business. In an early scene, Ibn Fahdlan and his travelling companion Melchisidek (Omar Sharif) meet with the Norsemen for the first time. While Buliwyf speaks in Norwegian, one of his men (Dennis Storhoi) translates into Latin for Melchisidek, who then translates into Arabic (which we hear as English) for Ibn Fahdlan. On the one hand, it's sort of a nice touch, emphasizing the culture clash with which Ibn Fahdlan must contend; on the other hand, it makes the scene such a jumble of cuts and translations that it grows dizzying. McTiernan has toyed with a pseudo-profound action film, and wound up with only a pseudo-action film, another noble effort to file in the Department of Token Praise.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 many sorta Vikings: 4.
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