GLADIATOR (DreamWorks) Starring: Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Oliver Reed, Djimon Honsou, Derek Jacobi, Richard Harris. Screenplay: David H. Franzoni & John Logan and William Nicholson. Producers: David H. Franzoni, Branko Lustig and Douglas Wick. Director: Ridley Scott. MPAA Rating: R (violence, gore, adult themes) Running Time: 154 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
"I am just an entertainer," sniffs one character to another late in Ridley Scott's GLADIATOR. The comment is intended as counterpoint to the hero's moral courage and desire to right wrongs, but it also rings an all-too-familiar chord as the movie season heads into its "summer event" phase. How often have brain-dead films been defended with a sniff that it's "just meant to be entertaining?" How often has "entertainment" in the blockbuster era been defined as "tens of millions of dollars thrown at a production that began without a completed script?" Critics cringe as the first of May draws near, knowing that a cadre of Hollywood film-makers who consider themselves "just entertainers" will be spewing forth grotesquely inept stories peppered with explosions and digital effects.
With such images in mind, I shouldn't diminish GLADIATOR by tossing out so banal a word as "entertaining" -- but it is. I shouldn't succumb to the temptation to describe it with ad-copy buzzwords like "spectacular!" or "dazzling!" or "epic!" -- but it is. Movies just don't get much more fundamentally satisfying on so many levels -- simple without being simplistic, grand in scope without losing track of its basic appeal.
The time is 180 A.D., where the Roman Empire is finishing the military campaign in Germania that will eliminate the last outpost of resistance. Leading the troops is General Maximus (Russell Crowe) -- valiant warrior, humble farmer and favorite of Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris). Though Maximus wants nothing more than to return home to his family at the end of the war, the ailing Marcus Aurelius wants him to become the next emperor, ultimately to return Rome to a republic. This understandably troubles Marcus Aurelius' son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), who kills his father before his will can be known. Succeeding to the throne, Commodus orders Maximus and his family executed. Maximus escapes, only to find himself enslaved by gladiator owner Proximo (Oliver Reed). >From his now-lowly state, Maximus vows to avenge the deaths of his family and his emperor.
The story is, to put it bluntly, older than the Roman Empire: reluctant-but-impossibly-noble hero fights against great odds to bring low a regal-but-impossibly-dastardly villain. It has been done and done and done again, because when it's done well, few stories are as viscerally effective. And GLADIATOR does it remarkably well. Crowe plays Maximus as straight as he can possibly be played, giving him an iconic grandeur; it's the kind of role that makes actors into movie stars. Phoenix makes a sensational sniveling villain, wrapping his parricidal tendencies and incestuous lechery after his sister Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) in a pathetically sincere need to be adored. The late Oliver Reed also scores in his final role as the casually cynical Proximo. Every one of them is playing a standard film type; every one of them refuses to submit to the notion that a type can't be played with energy and commitment. As a basic film story, GLADIATOR is lean and effective.
And it's not too bad as a visual treat, either. Copious use of digital effects is de rigeur for epic genre films circa 2000, yet there is nothing remotely obligatory or pointlessly showy about GLADIATOR's re-creation of ancient Rome. It's stunning work that raises the ruins of the Colosseum and captures both the magnificence and the casual brutality of the culture. The scenes of warfare and gladitorial contests are taut (and graphically gruesome) pieces of action film-making, bringing Ridley Scott back to the artistic heights he abandoned for films like G.I. JANE and WHITE SQUALL. It is becoming a Hollywood clich to claim that "every dollar is up there on the screen," but that's the way GLADIATOR feels. The execution of its technical detail is so precise that it never feels like more or less than exactly what is necessary to complement the story.
If there's a weak link to GLADIATOR, it's the amount of time devoted to Roman political intrigue. The imperial/republican squabbling and back-stabbing certainly recall classic sword-n-sandal films like SPARTACUS, but GLADIATOR starts to drag a bit whenever Derek Jacobi's plotting senator is on screen. Perhaps it's just that GLADIATOR is so invigorating as a stripped-down, nuts-and-bolts dramatic adventure that anything remotely resembling subtext just gets in the way. It's even more silly than amusing to contemplate parallels between GLADIATOR's crowd-pleasing bloodsports and professional wrestling (complete with Maximus's combat moniker "The Spaniard"). The usual caveat for summer event films has been something akin to "leave your brain at the door," but that's not entirely appropriate or fair to apply to GLADIATOR; it's too smartly scripted in its old-fashioned way. The better suggestion is to leave your expectations of hipness, reflexivity and big-budget bombast at the door. GLADIATOR is just entertaining ... in all the wonderful ways that word can be a good thing.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 Caesars solid: 9.
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